Boarded up but still open

Photo courtesy Mat-Su Borough
Boarded windows grace the front of the Mat-Su Borough
Administration building in Palmer. The boards will be gone
in November, when a new addition is framed in. 

If you haven’t noticed by now, the historic Mat-Su Borough building, where people pay their property taxes, get driveway permits and attend borough assembly meetings, is looking rough. East-facing windows  in the stately 1935 former school building are boarded up and the main entrance is fenced off with tall chain-link.

The building is getting a large renovation, one that Assembly members hope will allow borough residents better access at meetings and also afford borough employees some much-needed additional office space.

The work means the main entrance to the building is closed off. Patrons can enter through the Information Technology department or through the doors on the west side of the building. Mat-Su Borough meetings, such as Assembly, Planning Commission and Platting Board, are being held at the Mat-Su Borough School District Administration building for the next few months.  Here's a map to the School District Admin building.

Borough Public Works project manager Jeff Walden said construction on the $5.8 million addition is expected to be complete by July 2013. The windows are boarded up mostly as a precaution to borough workers through November, when Walden said the new addition should be framed in.