The Municipality of Anchorage is set to own its City Hall, rather than rent it, after the Assembly approved a purchase agreement Tuesday night. In total, the city is authorized to spend about $35 million on both the building and renovations to the roof and fire systems.
The municipality has rented the downtown building as City Hall since 1979, paying rent to the current owner since 2001. Anchorage Chief Administrative Officer Bill Falsey says the city has already paid far more than the building’s value in rent, and the current lease expires at the end of the year.
“Since 1979 and without adjusting for inflation, we’ve already paid more than $60 million in rent,” Falsey said to Assembly members Tuesday night. “It looked to us, as we were analyzing the possibilities, that there’s just no reason to keep doing that in perpetuity, and it’ll be in the municipality and the public’s long-term best interest to just buy the building.”…