Anchorage Mayor Dave Bronson will not buy the former Alaska Club fitness center on Tudor Road in Midtown for a 125-person homeless shelter.
“The administration does not intend to move forward with the purchase of the Alaska Club,” Matt Shuckerow, interim spokesman for the mayor, said Friday.
The mayor had until Friday to follow through with the deal, set up by former acting Mayor Austin Quinn-Davidson. It was a key part of her plan to create more homeless shelter beds before winter as the city stands down its mass shelter at the Sullivan Arena, set up during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Many Assembly members had approved of Quinn-Davidson’s plan and have pushed to create more, smaller shelter sites spread around Anchorage, along with other housing options for people in need.
Bronson’s appointed chief of staff, Craig Campbell, had indicated on Tuesday that the new administration would likely not follow through with the deal.
Instead, Bronson will push for the Assembly to approve a $15 million appropriation to build a large-scale homeless shelter and navigation center in East Anchorage that would house about 450 people but could be expanded to shelter up to 1,000.
Some on the Assembly have balked at the size and cost of Bronson’s proposed shelter and a lack of details about exactly how much it will cost to run, where the money would come from and what services would be provided on site.
In May, Quinn-Davidson announced that the city had entered into a $5.436 million purchase contract for the former Alaska Club building, but the acting mayor left it up to newly elected Bronson, who took office July 1, to follow through with the plan.
She planned to turn it into a 125-bed congregate emergency shelter and resource hub for people experiencing homelessness.
The city invested nonrefundable earnest money on the contract, and it will lose that money once the contract is terminated, a so far undisclosed amount.
Former real estate director Robin Ward had said, at the time that the deal was announced, that real estate deals are confidential until they are closed or terminated.
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