By Jenny Neyman
Redoubt Reporter
There is at least one thing both sides of a proposal for the city of Soldotna to buy the Hutchings Auto Group property for use as the city’s visitors center and chamber of commerce office can agree on — a need for planning.
But not quite of the same kind.
Those supporting the purchase talk of a need to think long term about what Soldotna could be in the future, and highlight how the purchase could advance some of those goals — enhancing the development of Soldotna Creek Park while creating a visitors center big enough to show off what Soldotna has to offer, a conference center that could be a hub of activity for residents and a bloom of landscaping to spruce up the otherwise concrete-dominant look of the highway.
“If this opportunity goes by we may never have that chance to go back and do re-planning, because cities just kind of grow and then, 30 years later, you go, ‘You know, we should have planned that a little better.’ This is a chance to kind of go back and redo that,’” said Michelle Glaves, executive director of the Soldotna Chamber of Commerce, which runs the city-owned visitors center.
Those with concerns about the proposed purchase, however, say more planning should go into the immediate decision in order to avoid what they see as a potential boondoggle of traffic jams and irresponsibly spent tax dollars.
“I don’t know that I’m totally opposed to it, but there’s just, for me, tons and tons of questions that aren’t answered, and that’s what frustrates me,” said Norm Blakely, who owns Blakeley’s Trading and Loan in Soldotna. “I don’t think they’ve done their homework. If they’re going to spend tax dollars let’s, for once in our lives, spend it wisely and let people know what’s going on.”
The Soldotna City Council approved a measure March 28 to purchase the 3.12-acre parcel at 44075 Sterling Highway, owned by David and Linda Hutchings, and the approximately 20,000-square-foot building that has operated as Hutchings Auto Group, for $2.1 million. The purpose is to relocate the Soldotna Visitors Center and chamber of commerce office from its current 800-square-foot facility at the intersection of the Sterling Highway and Kalifornsky Beach Road.
Because of the amount involved, the decision must go before Soldotna voters for ratification. The city is holding a special election Tuesday, May 1, with absentee voting ongoing since April 16.
Whether to check “yes” or “no” on the ballot is the ultimate question facing Soldotna voters, but that decision will likely be informed by the many other questions surrounding the issue. Such as:
Why does the city need a bigger visitors center?
The current location of the visitors center and chamber office lacks space, restrooms, parking and accessibility, Glaves said. The center gets 45,000 to 50,000 people through the building in the summer, alone, and only has one men’s restroom and one women’s restroom, plus the portable toilets put out in the parking lot during the summer.
“And we have people wanting to have more in our visitors center. We don’t have much of the historical information of the area, and then some other mounts and information for people to go see more of the area. We just don’t have any room to go see anything else,” Glaves said.
Access is another problem. When the David Douthit bridge over the Kenai River was replaced, the highway widened and the K-Beach-Sterling Highway intersection redone in 2006, a turning lane, which facilitated access to the center, was removed. Now any vehicles coming to the center from K-Beach, Funny River Road or the Homer direction have to stop in the left lane of traffic in order to turn left into the center’s parking lot.
“Yeah, I get waved at and honked at almost every morning,” Glaves said. “When it was built it had great access. It was off that intersection a ways, but it totally changed when the bridge got wider and the road got wider.”
Why not just expand the visitors center where it is?
Glaves said that the chamber board of directors has been investigating ways to solve the access and space issues for about 15 years, and has come to the conclusion that it is not possible to modify the current site to remedy the problems.
Expanding the footprint of the building would eat up parking space, which is already limited, Glaves said. There isn’t much room to expand the current building, with it sandwiched between the highway on one side and a sloping hill down to the river on another.
“The land that the visitors center is on is very, very limited, we can’t expand to the side,” Glaves said.
Any drastic expansion plans, such as moving the building on the lot or adding another story, would be expensive, and may not even be allowed. Glaves said the building as it is now is grandfathered in to old building code requirements. Doing anything drastic — such as a major expansion or addition of conference space, which the chamber would like to do in the future — would mean the building has to meet updated codes.
“If we tried to enlarge that building and put in some conference space, it would be changing the use of that building. As troubling as access is now, they could potentially shut the project down if we tried to enlarge it because it would be changing the use of the building inviting more people in there,” Glaves said.
Glaves said the chamber board also has found no solutions to the site’s access issues. Adding an access road off of Centennial Park Road was considered, but there’s a strip of land in the way owned by the Exxon Valdez Oil Trust, which will not allow a road to be built.
Why the Hutchings property? Why not somewhere else?
Though Blakely has put up signs opposing the purchase in front of his business, he said he’s not necessarily against the idea of moving and/or expanding the visitors center. He said he just isn’t sure the Hutchings property is the right spot for it, especially since vehicles coming into town from the Anchorage direction on the Sterling Highway or Kenai on the Kenai Spur Highway are going to have to turn left across two lanes of traffic to get there.
“I like it that it’s right into town, but you have a stoplight that’s coming up there immediately, you have to turn left across traffic, and then coming back out you have to go back into traffic. And in the summertime? I’m not sure that’s the best location,” he said.
Glaves said the chamber has investigated several other options, but this is the first to look promising enough to pursue to the point of bringing it to public attention, she said.
“Probably 15 years ago, the chamber has been the organization primarily looking at and trying to identify different places that we might move and/or how to expand. This is the first time we’ve taken it to the city council, but I think we’ve looked at probably a half-dozen sites over the past years,” she said.
The now-closed Crossing restaurant across the Sterling Highway from the visitors center was considered, she said. While the building had ample space and restrooms, the parking lot was too small and access would still be a problem, with no turning lane on the Sterling Highway and privately owned property blocking access from Funny River Road.
“The Riverside, we looked at that. We have investigated property all along the highway. We want to stay on highway. It’s easy to find and that is the highest traffic area,” Glaves said.
But why not put the center at the outside edge of town — say, out by Big John’s gas station, or on the property the chamber previously owned and sold by Good Time Charlie’s? That’s the argument of Daniel Lynch, a Soldotna resident who has been a vocal opponent to the proposed Hutchings purchase.
“I’ve talked to enough travelers who have driven the Alcan (Alaska Highway), and they say that’s exactly what they look for — something right at the beginning of town where they can pull in, dump their waste, check out the town they’re going into,” he said.
Generally these days, buying and renovating is cheaper than building from scratch. And Glaves said that the Hutchings property offers some unique benefits. Size is one. A more than 20,000-square-foot building and 3.12-acre lot for parking is plenty big enough. Another is location, with the property fronting the growing Soldotna Creek Park. The visitors center lot could be used as additional parking for people attending festivals or activities at the park. The lot could also be used as parking for the community playground and the Kenai Watershed Forum. Glaves said the area might even be reconfigured to allow driving access to the Watershed Forum via the visitors center, rather than traffic currently being routed past the playground.
“Soldotna Creek Park is such a great asset. There’s so many residents who don’t even know what is all there at the park. They already need more parking for festival parking and Wednesday Markets and the playground. If we can act as a gateway into that park, and basically add 3 acres to the park and the playground, help the access to the Kenai Watershed Forum, and enhance all the improvements that we have done and are continuing to do to Soldotna Creek Park, I think that is just awesome,” she said.
Part of the plan for the site is landscaping — removing some of the concrete and putting in trees, grass and flowers.
“It will change the whole look of how when you come into Soldotna. It won’t be concrete and strip malls. The first view you will get is basically a park,” Glaves said. “That’s what excites me the most, to change the whole look of how you can come into Soldotna.”
Traffic concerns
Blakely, Lynch and others skeptical of the proposal foresee traffic problems if Hutchings becomes the new home of the visitors center. Anyone coming from the Anchorage or Kenai directions will need to turn left across two lanes of traffic to get to the center, and back out across two lanes if they want to continue that direction.
There is a turning lane in the Sterling Highway in front of Hutchings, but Lynch doesn’t think the lane is long enough between Hutchings and where the turning lane ends at the “Y” intersection with the Kenai Spur Highway to fit more than a few motor homes. Any vehicles behind four or five motor homes wanting to turn into the center will be backed up into traffic, he said.
Glaves said there are options for alleviating traffic problems. Primarily, a stoplight is slated to go in at the Birch Street intersection in late 2012 or early 2013 that will facilitate turning across the highway. That intersection will lead into the park, and people wanting to get to the visitors center can drive through the park to get to the visitors center lot. There also will be three other access points to the park and visitors center. One is the current entrance to Soldotna Creek Park, and Glaves said that two other driveways would be incorporated on the side of the Hutchings building facing Don Jose’s. There won’t be any access on the side of the building that’s closest to the “Y,” so that will extend the length of turning lane available for accessing the center and park, she said.
While there is no magic cure-all to the double-edged sword of summer tourism in Soldotna — more visitors means more economic activity, yet also more traffic — Glaves said the Hutchings site would still be better than the visitors center’s current location.
“I think the light will mitigate a lot of it. And there is a middle turn lane (at Hutchings). Where we’re at now there is not one. I think more residents see the problems right in town at the “Y” the way they exist now, but there are huge problems at the K-Beach intersection now (that people aren’t as aware of),” she said.
What’s this about a conference center?
Somewhat on the periphery of the visitors center discussion has been talk of incorporating a conference center. That’s a down-the-road idea, Glaves said, but one generated from community support. Around the time the chamber board was first considering the Hutchings property, the McDowell Group prepared a feasibility and sustainability study for an enlarged visitors center and a future convention center.
“What came out of that is that Soldotna residents really wanted a conference center/community center where residents could hold meetings, plays, art shows, fundraisers and things like that,” Glaves said.
Also around the same time, the city was working on its Envision 2030 comprehensive plan.
“That mentions in about 20 different places a community center/city center. It even suggests in there where it should be — it says within the corridor of the ‘Y’ right there, which (the Hutchings property) totally fits. When we started comparing what the Envision 2030 plan has, with what the citizens of Soldotna have said they wanted in that plan and what the feasibility and sustainability plan said about people wanting conferences here, having a place to do that (in the visitors center) made sense. That was one attraction of this building,” Glaves said.
But the city already has meeting spaces, opponents say. Private businesses have spaces for rent, such as the Aspen Hotel and Mykel’s Restaurant, as does the Soldotna Sports Center.
Blakely said he, for one, isn’t absolutely opposed to the idea of a conference center, but doesn’t like how nebulous the idea seems to him to be at this point.
“If they can prove to us that, say, we need a convention center — it’d be good for us, and it’d be good for our community and everything, and they can show us that that’s a good thing and will bring in revenue, and enough to cover the cost of that plus help our area, I’m not totally opposed to it. But they say it’s going to cost $5 million to $6 million to remodel (Hutchings) to turn it into a convention center, and they’re not talking about any of this stuff. That’s not out on the table (in the election),” Blakely said.
The ballot specifically asks voters about the city paying $2.1 million to purchase the Hutchings property in order to move the visitors center. Voters are not being asked to weigh in on the idea of a conference center.
Glaves said that city dollars aren’t going to be used to create a conference center.
“The chamber had pledged that any further renovations that will happen to that building (such as adding a conference center), that the chamber would take that on,” she said. “There are other things, if it were to become a conference center, that we would have to do to the building, but that is way down the road and the chamber would cover those costs.”
Lynch is skeptical about the chamber’s idea of covering the costs. His question: Who’s to say the chamber won’t go back to the city seeking more money for renovations, or attempt to get money from the Legislature, which would be state tax dollars?
“That’d be getting our tax dollars one way or another — going to the Legislature or the city. The $2.1 million without having a plan is just a beginning, that’s just the camel getting his nose under the tent,” he said.
Calculating the cost
The city proposes to spend $2.1 million to purchase the property. Beyond that it’s estimated that costs for immediate lot beautification and facility renovations — to put in additional restrooms and make the building compliant with Americans with Disabilities Act requirements — will be from $350,000 to $550,000. The chamber will contribute $250,000, leaving the city to cover the remaining costs of $100,000 to $300,000, depending on how those costs come in.
It’s words like “from,” “range” and “depending” that make Blakely nervous. Especially since there’s a wide gap between the borough assessment of $1.4 million and the property’s appraised value, $2.8 million, according to an appraisal by Black-Smith, Bethard and Carlson, LLC, done in July 18, 2011.
“I know the borough assessment’s not always what the valuation of the property is but I’ve never heard anything on a commercial building or something that size that the assessment was half of it,” Blakely said.
He also questions how realistic the city’s renovations estimate is.
“They don’t know if the roof’s good on it, they don’t know if meets codes, all kinds of things that just seem crazy to me,” he said.
Glaves said she asked the borough about the assessment, and believes the figure is an old one and that an updated assessment would yield an amount more in line with the appraisal. As for the renovations estimation, it was not plucked from thin air. The city engineer investigated the building and came up with those figures.
It is not absolutely certain that renovation costs won’t exceed that estimation, but Glaves points out that it also is not certain the city will end up going through with the purchase if as-yet-unforeseen costs come up. A “yes” vote in the election doesn’t obligate the city to purchase the property. It allows the city to have until Sept. 15 to further investigate the property before deciding for sure whether to proceed.
“It’s just like buying a house, all this does is say our offer is $2.1 million. Now we’re having our engineers really take a deep look at this, we’re having the inspection to see if it’s worth it. It does not obligate the city to buy it. The earnest money agreement gives the city four months to do due diligence on the building to see if they’re getting what they expected to get,” Glaves said.
Why a special election?
Having a May 1 election feels rushed to make a decision of this magnitude, Blakely said.
“If they would just take it off the table and have some city meetings at the sports center or something, maybe I could be convinced,” Blakely said. “We’ve got two elections coming up this year, one in October and one in November. Why are they spending all the extra money to get this done, when I don’t believe — even if they pass it — they can use it this year?”
Primary and general elections will, indeed, be held this fall. And even if the purchase is approved, the visitors center wouldn’t be up and running in its new location until next year. But Glaves said there is a concern with timing on the Hutchings property. Though she said she isn’t privy to personal financial matters of the Hutchings family, her understanding is that waiting until fall to see whether the city could make an offer would have been too long to expect the property to be available.
The Mouth of The Kenai 