With the political mood increasingly hostile to the idea of moving Alaska Psychiatric Institute into the Airport Heights neighborhood, another option is back on the table: building a new hospital, officials said Thursday.

State Rep. Sharon Cissna has called for ideas to be presented Saturday morning at the "API summit."

The glitch is likely to be an old one: money.

Both ideas will be discussed Saturday at a public meeting organized by state Rep. Sharon Cissna, a Democrat and longtime resident of Airport Heights. Her agenda is to find a solution for replacing the 38-year-old building at what she is calling an "API summit."

"We've got two options out there. They are both acceptable to us. One of them costs a lot more money than we have," said Karen Perdue, state commissioner of health and social services.

API is the state's only public mental hospital. Many Airport Heights residents have protested API's moving into the Charter building, which borders the neighborhood elementary school. Charter treats mainly children, and none of its patients are committed by the courts. API patients are mainly adults, and few are there voluntarily. Some were found not guilty of violent crimes by reason of insanity or are awaiting psychiatric evaluations for fitness to stand trial.

The estimated cost of a new hospital on the grounds of API off Providence Drive is $55.5 million, including demolition. That's $33 million more than the state has for the project, said API director Randall Burns.

Burns said he has not been directed to change course, so he is still working on the other option, moving into the Charter North Hospital building on DeBarr Road on the edge of Airport Heights. The state signed an agreement in August to buy the building for $11.7 million. Consulting engineers have been looking it over this week.

"Within the funds that we have and the fact we don't have any additional money or land, this is the only choice. This is how we came to this position in the first place," Burns said.

But the Charter plan faces a big hurdle too. The property needs to be rezoned if API moves there. The state wasn't sure that was necessary until it received a city legal opinion this week. Rezoning will require public hearings before the city Planning and Zoning Commission, which has already voted unanimously against the project, and then the Anchorage Assembly.

The city legal opinion said subtle changes in the land-use code mean the Charter property is no longer zoned for hospitals. The opinion also said API is not considered a correctional facility under city code. API could move into the Charter building without a rezoning as another psychiatric hospital, planners said, but couldn't expand. The state says it needs the flexibility to add on and will seek the zoning change.

The Charter deal is supposed to close by February. The state can get out of it if there are obstacles such as litigation or zoning problems.

The state decided in 1989 that API must be replaced because of aging mechanical, plumbing and electrical systems. Some workers there contend the problems were overstated in the interest of getting a new hospital.

The state spent about $10 million on planning and development of a new hospital but dropped the idea in December 1998 because it would need millions more to build one. It then honed in on the Charter option.

House Speaker Brian Porter said Thursday that if rezoning fails, the Legislature might consider approving more money for a new hospital, perhaps through bonds that could be sold by the Mental Health Trust Authority. Maybe the unit that houses prisoners, the one that most alarms the neighborhood, could be separated out, he said. He said API has no urgent need to move.

"That is one of the options," he said, "to stay where they are for now and let the emotions calm down and see what the real budget options are."

Meanwhile, politicians and candidates are coming out in force against the Charter plan.

Republican Jeff Gonnason, Cissna's challenger in House District 21, sent out a campaign mailer in September with the heading "Moving API Into Airport Heights Is Simply Wrong."

Cissna then called the summit. She said Gonnason and others helped her see the political climate had changed and that the Charter plan didn't have to be considered a done deal. Gonnason said the state should look into a lease-purchase arrangement where it wouldn't have to pay for constructing a new hospital but could buy it down the road.

Republican Terry Martin, a former representative now running for state Senate in a district that includes Airport Heights, said he decided to make it one of his campaign issues after residents kept bringing it up.

"The purchase of Charter North and the entire history of solving API's problem is an embarrassment" to the Department of Health and Social Services, Martin said in a recent campaign mailer.

His opponent for the Senate seat, Democrat Bettye Davis, on Wednesday announced her opposition to the Charter plan and said the state should build a new API on the current campus.

Assembly members Doug Van Etten, who represents the area, and Dan Sullivan said Thursday they oppose the Charter plan too. But Assemblyman Allan Tesche said his mind wasn't made up.

"I want to listen to as much information before my brain slams shut, and I won't accept any more information or argument," he said.

Reporter Lisa Demer can be reached at ldemer@adn.com or 257-4390.