27 apartments where polaris stood

and the city got exactly one proposal for it.

Downtown Fairbanks had that 11 story tower on Lacey Street for 72 years before the city took it down last year. Clearing the site ran 13 million dollars in state and federal money.

Now three local partners want a four story building on that lot. Ground floor retail and community space, with 27 apartments above it.

A second phase would go on the city's parking lot on Noble Street between First and Second. A housing nonprofit's office downstairs, ten more apartments upstairs.

Rents in the plan run from about 800 dollars up to just under nineteen hundred, depending on the subsidy attached to each unit.

The first phase pencils out at 23.8 million dollars. That's stitched together from low income housing tax credits, a federal housing trust fund, a bank loan, and a land loan from the city itself.

City staff have questions. The plan leans hard on those tax credits and didn't include a construction timeline. Whoever gets picked has to break ground within a year.

The mayor called it thoughtful and said she wished more groups had bid. The council sees the full presentation September eighth.