Mat Maid purchase mooving slowly

The Alaskana Bookstore
Photos by Zaz Hollander

Since 2008 or so, the City of Palmer has been trying to buy up the checkerboard of properties that make up the Matanuska Maid block. Voters two years ago very narrowly OK’d the city spending up to $3 million in a bond to buy the properties. 

Where do things stand today?

Not too far along, given the pollutants in the ground at as-yet unknown levels. Oh, also the fires that consumed first one warehouse, then the other on the 9-acre site. And apparently too-low offers on six of seven parcels.

As community development director Sandra Garley tells it, the city had appraisals done on all seven properties that make up the site. Seven property owners received offers. 

Only one property - the circa-1935 building that houses the Alaskana Bookstore at 564 S. Denali St. - is in the purchase loop. The city executed an agreement there that allows officials onto the property to start doing environmental studies. Even that is just a $5,000 “binder” as Garley calls it, to get a local environmental engineer on site to look at contamination from past uses.

“One thing the council said very clearly when we started the process: ‘We want to know before we buy anything, what is the environmental liability?’” Garley said. 

We’re not talking about manure here - no cows. But the original colony garage occupied the property, as did a powerhouse and two warehouses, both now lost to fire. That’s left pesticides and fertilizers, oils from the garage. Some, like oil and gas, tend to evaporate when exposed, Garley said. But chemicals in pesticides and fertilizers linger - it’s just not clear in what amount.

Anybody who buys contaminated property is liable to clean it up under U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regulations, though the original owner also remains liable. 

The city got a $70,000 Brownfields grant from EPA. The agency uses the money to drill holes and sample for contamination. Before they enter any property, the city has to get permission, a la Alaskana Bookstore. 

The agency will wait and do sampling on the properties as a group, rather than come up from Seattle to do each site, Garley said.  

Meanwhile, city officials are still working on those six other parcels. The biggest and most expensive, at eight acres, is owned by the state Department of Natural Resources through the Agricultural Revolving Loan Fund. The city hopes to do a land swap, Garley said. That hasn’t happened yet. The powerhouse parcel is owned by the Palmer Arts Council. Jeff Johnson owns the parcel with mini-storage warehouses. Attorney Bill Ingaldson owns the warehouse property. 

“We’re proceeding slowly which can be frustrating to the property owners but we’re being careful because it’s a huge expense to the city,” Garley said. “There’s an upside but there are some downsides too.” 

She expects a report to the city council this month or next. 

-- Zaz Hollander

Farewell to another piece of Mat Maid

Fire crews respond to the Mat Maid fire early the morning of Wednesday, Aug. 7 in a photo
posted that morning on Facebook by Palmer Mayor DeLena Johnson.

A fast-moving fire destroyed the historic Matanuska Maid warehouse early this morning. 

The building was long vacant. No injuries were reported.

Firefighters arriving on scene could see the building was likely a total loss, so they focused on a bigger problem: making sure the blaze didn't reach the nearby, petroleum-loaded Crowley Maritime tank farm.

Photo by Rindi White
By daylight, the Mat Maid warehouse was gone.
The dairy's former bottling plant is part of the
property on the right.

The first 9-1-1 call came at 3:33 a.m. from someone at Valley Hotel, Palmer public safety director Jon Owen said this morning. A total of 31 separate pieces of firefighting apparatus responded to the blaze, including three ladder trucks. Engines came from Palmer Fire Department and Mat-Su Central Fire Department, where responders mustered to an "all-call" from emergency dispatchers.

Palmer Fire Chief John McNutt was the first person to get to the fire. McNutt drove around the 9-acre Mat Maid complex and spotted flames shooting out from below the eaves. Within minutes, the roof was engulfed, Owen said.

Crews operating under a "surround and drown" strategy suppressed the fire. But their goal wasn't saving the old warehouse building, built in the 1930s, Owen said.  

Their focus instead was preventing "the conflagration" sure to follow if the fire reached the adjacent  Crowley Maritime Corp. fuel sales office next door, where all the petroleum products on site would pose a tremendous problem should they ignite, he said.  

The Palmer tank farm holds 100,000 gallons of petroleum products and serves as a distribution center for Anchorage, Palmer, Wasilla, and all the Matanuska Valley, according to Crowley's Web site.

The fire was knocked down by 6:40 a.m.

Photos courtesy Palmer police Officer Jason Crockett

The warehouse used to be used for produce sold out of one end. Rindi remembers walking through it with owner Bill Ingaldson a few years back; during the visit, she picked up an old potato sack decorated with the Matanuska Maid in her skating costume. Palmerites may remember that former city manager Bill Allen hoped to put a convention center on the property. 

This is the second destructive fire at the Mat Maid complex. A wind-whipped arson fire set by three teenagers destroyed the hardware store in February, 2003. 

Investigators were at the scene by 10 a.m. or so trying to determine the cause of the fire; finding the ignition source is key when there's no obvious heat source like a boiler, Owen said. Anything suspicious will be followed up. The investigation is being conducted by John Bond, an inspector with the Alaska State Fire Marshal's Office, and Palmer police Sgt. Shayne La Croix.

Anyone with information about this morning's fire is asked to call Sgt. La Croix at 745-4811.

-- Zaz Hollander