The Fairbanks City Council got its first glimpse of a draft letter of interest, or LOI, for the city-owned Polaris Building site at a Tuesday morning work session.
The letter could be part of the roadmap the city uses to try to steer the downtown core in a promising direction, now that contractors have toppled the abandoned, 11-story high-rise. But the letter isn't final, and council members may make changes, big or small.
The draft letter says the city is looking to lease or sell the property to a party that would become “the prime stakeholder for the redevelopment of city owned parcels located in downtown Fairbanks.”
The property was home to the Polaris Building for more than 70 years.
For its replacement, the draft letter says a developer should begin the first phase of construction by May 2027 and complete any additional phases by June 2030.
It also lays out a possible selection process. The draft letter says the LOI would go out for a 90-day period to attract questions and comments from possible developers. A formal request for proposals, or RFP, would follow and would remain open for 120 days. Responding to the letter is not required to submit a proposal, it says.
After the RFP, plans would then be evaluated and scored according to yet-to-be established criteria. The top three scorers would present to the city council, which would make the final decision.
City Engineer Bob Pristash had a hand in creating the draft letter of interest. And he says if the council moves forward with it, that’ll get the ball rolling.
“If this gets advertised, it’s going to make the process get started. It’ll put more interest in it, and we’ll come up with the criteria that we want to put on the property,” he said.
But the key word here is “draft.”
Councilmember Jerry Cleworth doesn’t think the LOI step is necessary. He wants to skip it and jump straight into sending out an RFP. But he said Tuesday they would need to tighten up the parameters so that developers’ ideas can align with the council’s.
“We need to have some special work sessions as to what we are looking for on that property, and what we are not. I don’t want to waste somebody’s idea if we’re absolutely not going to do it,” he said.
And while Councilmember Valerie Therrien didn’t discount the letter of interest strategy, she also said there’s more to figure out.
“I think before we get any further, we need to decide whether or not we want to lease or sell, and then go from there.”
As it became apparent the draft LOI was near, Therrien withdrew a resolution last week that sought to publicly notice meetings of a working group tasked with considering ways to approach the redevelopment.
The group consists of some city staff, Fairbanks Mayor David Pruhs, Councilmembers John Ringstad and Sue Sprinkle and local architect CB Bettisworth.
That membership is according to Pruhs, who announced Tuesday that Bettisworth is resigning from the group because a developer had tapped the firm where he works about the Polaris site.
Pruhs later asked Sprinkle directly whether she thought the group did anything “nefarious” or showed bias to any private entity.
“No, I think everyone was trying to do due diligence, trying to gather questions, trying to get all the players involved,” she answered.
Ringstad also confirmed the group’s integrity and productivity. The council will take up the draft letter again at a work session on Sept. 2.