The City and Borough of Juneau is looking to sell its City Hall building downtown as it moves staff to the Michael J. Burns building in the near future.
Sealaska Heritage Institute, whose mission is to uplift Lingít, Haida and Ts’msyen cultures of Southeast Alaska, says it’s interested in buying it. The nonprofit wants to tear down City Hall and build something new.
“The building is 75 years old and has, in addition to over $12 million of deferred maintenance, there’s asbestos contamination, lead paint contamination issues,” said Lee Kadinger, the nonprofit’s chief operating officer, in an interview with KTOO.
Kadinger said a new building would focus on expanding SHI’s arts campus downtown.
“We’re looking to construct a facility that would add a glass studio space to Juneau and build upon our Northwest Coast Arts Capital vision,” he said.
Kadinger said the new facility would focus on cultural tourism programming. It would give visitors hands-on training in Northwest Coast arts, and include a glass studio, where Lingít glass artist Preston Singletary would train people on how to work with glass.
“A glass studio space is something that we’ve always kind of looked at, and it’s always been a priority for us,” he said. “We know the benefits it would bring not only to artists as well as the community members and visitors alike.”
SHI estimates the new facility could cost up to $40 million to construct, but would bring in both revenue and jobs to downtown. It would match the nonprofit’s other neighboring facilities, including the Walter Soboleff Building, its Atnané Hít arts campus and Indigenous Science Building.
Kadinger said the idea to build a new facility at the site has been in the works since the city began openly discussing moving to a new City Hall location a few years back. Recently, Kadinger said SHI altered its design to offer the city the opportunity to relocate the Juneau-Douglas City Museum to the second floor of the new building.
At a committee meeting on Monday, Juneau Assembly member Christine Woll said she supports negotiating a deal with SHI.
“We have a proposal in front of us from someone we know can deliver year-round use at a value that is close to what we think market value to be, and an option to also explore potential solutions for our city museum as well,” she said.
The City Hall move is estimated to cost at least $20 million. The sale would help recoup some of the costs of moving to the new location.
Right now, the Assembly wants to sell the City Hall building for a minimum of $2.5 million, but SHI has only offered $1.5 million for it. On Monday, the Assembly discussed two options for City Hall: one ordinance that would put the building up for sale at a minimum $2.5 million bid, and another would allow for the city to negotiate the sale directly with SHI. The Assembly will take public testimony at a future meeting and then decide on which ordinance to ultimately move forward with.
Assembly member Maureen Hall said she favored selling the building for potentially less money to a community-minded entity — such as SHI — over a company with deeper pockets.
“I think by putting it out to the highest bid, we have the risk of a big company with really deep pockets swooping in and snatching it up, and then where would we be?” she said. “It’d be a little hard to go back.”
But Mayor Beth Weldon said she would rather put it up for bid.
“I support SHI, but again, they don’t pay property tax, so we’re going to get $1.5 million, and that will be it,” she said.
SHI does not pay local property taxes in Juneau because it is a tax-exempt nonprofit, except if SHI leases space to a for-profit business, according to city officials.
Meanwhile, City Manager Katie Koester said the move to the new City Hall location in the Michael J. Burns building will take longer than expected, which will likely drive up costs.
This story has been updated to clarify SHI’s property tax exemption.
