A pond and stretch of green space off Tudor Road in Anchorage known as Waldron Lake is now officially owned by the city, marking a key victory for neighbors who have battled for years protect the land as a park.
On Christmas Eve, Mayor Ethan Berkowitz and city treasurer Dan Moore wrote a check to the Boys and Girls Clubs purchasing the 17-acre tract of land, using $3.9 million in state funds approved in 2012. The transfer of the land comes after negotiations with the Boys and Girls Clubs and an April 2014 legal settlement with a woman who married into the family that originally owned the land.
Anchorage Assembly Chair Dick Traini, who lives near the lake and was involved in the negotiations, emailed a copy of the check and wrote, "We now as a city own Waldron Lake."
"Given where the state is heading, I'm glad we now have that," Traini said in a later interview. "It's probably the last time we'll see that kind of money coming from the state of Alaska to add a park to the (city) land trust."
He said he'll next seek an Assembly ordinance to have the area formally dedicated as parkland.
The parcel consists of a small lake surrounded by playing fields, nestled among subdivisions near the intersection of Tudor Road and the Seward Highway. It was sold to the clubs in 1972 at a steep discount by Marcie Trent, who homesteaded the property with her first husband Roger Waldron and intended for it to be preserved as a park.
Trent was 77 when she was killed in 1995 by a bear on McHugh Trail, along with her son Larry Waldron.
In more than four decades of ownership, the Boys and Girls Clubs added topsoil and made improvements to the land, which was originally a gravel pit. It has been used by dog agility clubs, bird watchers and the Anchorage Fire Department's water rescue team for practice.
In 2011, amid federal funding cuts, Boys and Girls Clubs began making plans to sell the property to the city. The organization worked with neighbors to ask the state Legislature to earmark $4 million in the capital budget, allowing the city to buy the parcel and keep it as a park.
Gov. Sean Parnell vetoed the funds in 2011 but the money came through in a subsequent capital budget. Then Lioudmila Trent, the widow of John Trent, Marcie Trent's second husband, filed a lawsuit arguing the property should be transferred back to the family. An out-of-court settlement in 2014 between Trent and the Boys and Girls Clubs cleared the way for the land to become a city park.
Of the $4 million appropriated by the state, $3.9 million is being used to pay for the land, Traini said. He said $500,000 is being invested in a trust, of which the interest will be used to pay city maintenance costs. The remaining $80,000 went toward the cost of the transaction through the city's real estate office, Traini said.
Alana Humprey, chief executive of Boys and Girls Clubs, did not return a call seeking comment.
Cherie Northon, a community organizer who lives near the lake and was part of the push to preserve it, said she was relieved that the sale had been completed. She and others worried that condominiums would someday surround the lake if it wasn't turned into a park.
The formal dedication of the park by the Assembly, Northon said, would be the final step.
"We're still not there but it's been a really, really long process," Northon said. "We're a lot closer."