Wasilla fire hall demolished

WASILLA — Those in downtown Wasilla had an interesting view while sitting in traffic as an excavator demolished and disposed of the Jake Wright Fire Hall Monday.

Located on the corner of Herning Avenue and Main Street, the fire hall was on a piece of property owned by the city of Wasilla, and the building was owned by the Matanuska-Susitna Borough. The borough’s 40-year-lease was up, and the city of Wasilla plans to landscape the plot for a parking lot, according to Mayor Bert Cottle.

The fire hall had been most recently used as a maintenance building for borough vehicles, but the small size of the lot and the nature of where it was located made it tough for vehicles to get in and out. With the building of the new Public Safety Building 7-3 in Meadow Lakes, an enormous facility specifically designed to allow vehicles to drive in through the back and out through the front, the need to maintain borough vehicles was satisfied, making the fire hall no longer viable.

The demolition was phase one of the project, and Cottle said that phase two will require additional budget processes to fund and landscape the parking lot, which Cottle called a dire need in downtown Wasilla.