Assemblyman Paul Honeman is proposing that the city set aside $6 million to negotiate a purchase of indoor tennis courts from the Alaska Club.
The tennis courts would be located on Anchorage's East Side, according to a budget proposal that Honeman submitted to the Assembly on Monday morning. The Alaska Club has a facility with indoor tennis courts in East Anchorage off of Tudor Road.
Honeman didn't immediately respond to requests for comment. He had been skeptical of efforts by Mayor Dan Sullivan and the Alaska Tennis Association to spend state grant money, and city bond money, on a new city-run indoor tennis center in Turnagain.
Honeman's new proposal would set aside city money for the indoor courts, much of it from property taxes. The Turnagain facility, by contrast, would have relied on $4.4 million in state grant funding.
Money for that West Anchorage project was removed from the capital budget passed by the Legislature last week, which took a Turnagain tennis center off the table.
Honeman's proposal would set aside city money for "facility purchase, tenant improvements, and an independent valuation."
In a phone interview from New York, Alaska Club President Robert Brewster said that his company would be open to a purchase.
"I am aware that there is interest in that, but I've been here in New York and I really haven't been able to participate in that," he said.
He declined to comment further.
The Assembly will consider Honeman's proposal at its meeting Monday at 6 p.m. at the Loussac Library, as part of the city's first-quarter budget review process.
Reach Nathaniel Herz at nherz@adn.com or 257-4311.
By NATHANIEL HERZ