The developers and owners of a downtown Anchorage office block have opened a legal battle with the Alaska Legislature.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, 716 West Fourth Avenue LLC, a corporation owned by developers Mark Pfeffer and Bob Acree, filed an \u201cappeal from administrative agency\u201d in Anchorage Superior Court. <\/p>\n
The appeal is a legal action escalating a disagreement between the developers and the Legislative Council, the body that controls the Legislature\u2019s office space.<\/p>\n
Tuesday\u2019s action is the latest step in a long-running furor over 716 West Fourth Avenue, the building that formerly housed the offices of Anchorage lawmakers.<\/p>\n
In 2015, an Anchorage Superior Court judge ruled that the Legislature\u2019s 10-year lease for the building \u2014 negotiated and signed under the tenure of former Legislative Council chairman Rep. Mike Hawker, R-Anchorage \u2014 was illegal and invalid.<\/p>\n
In response, 716 West Fourth Avenue filed a complaint through the state\u2019s administrative channels, contending that the Legislative Council\u2019s illegal action cost developers millions of dollars because the renovated the building specifically to meet the Legislature\u2019s needs.<\/p>\n
The complaint seeks $37 million in damages from the state of Alaska \u2014 an amount roughly equivalent to the cost of the renovated building.<\/p>\n
The Legislative Council rejected the developers\u2019 complaint, and now they have escalated it into the court system.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the Legislature has abandoned the Fourth Avenue building to a $12.5 million office complex purchased last year in Anchorage\u2019s Spenard district.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The developers and owners of a downtown Anchorage office block have opened a legal battle with the Alaska Legislature. On Tuesday, 716 West Fourth Avenue LLC, a corporation owned by developers Mark Pfeffer and Bob Acree, filed an \u201cappeal from administrative agency\u201d in Anchorage Superior Court. The appeal is a legal action escalating a disagreement […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[34,230],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-20013","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-alaska-legislature","tag-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20013","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20013"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20013\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20013"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=20013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}