Top 10 Significant Projects of the Last Decade

Good to be back! If you read the previous post, you knew that I could not take care of the blog for I had things to do in addition to the coming holiday season, which is like a vortex that usually takes you in about a week or two in advance and doesn't let you recover until some time in early January. It's rough. But I'm back, so lets get this blog back on the road and pretend the lull never happened.

Anyways, for a while I've been debating with myself whether to do this or not. One of my pet peeves has long been the annual end-of-the-year review. You've all seen this: On just about every form of media, be it newspaper, websites, or, most notably, television, end-of-the-year reviews seem to be excuses, particularly for cable channels, to run old footage and not worry about new and original material for the week's show. The end of 2009 was especially bad because it also brought about the obligatory decade-in-review. But besides it being February, for which I will undoubtedly stand out and get noticed by the masses for my two-month-late review, this last decade was one that Anchorage had not seen since the 1980s. If you lived here in the 1990s, you knew Anchorage was quite a dead place. The biggest thing to happen to Anchorage in the '90s was the arrival of Walmart and Schuck's Auto Supply. Alright, I'm being a little flippant; the '90s did see the construction of the 20-story Anchorage Marriott in downtown. But beyond that, I honestly could not think of 10 major projects from that decade. Contrast that to the '80s, in which Anchorage saw an expanded museum, the Sullivan Arena, the Egan Center, the 5th Avenue Mall, the Performing Arts Center, and two of Alaska's tallest (and still tallest) towers in downtown, among other projects. While oil doesn't flow down the pipeline in the great quantity that it did in the '80s, the 2000s were good to Anchorage if, like me, you're into construction stalking. With that said, if anything in this world deserves a 10-year review, it's of course the projects that rose into the sky throughout the Anchorage bowl. 

10. Alutiiq Plaza

Not very well known due to its tucked-away location, but I had to add Alutiiq Plaza to the top-10 list. I think it deserves it. In response to the old criticism of uninspiring bland office buildings going up in the last 40 years, this last decade has seen a shift, with an attempt to give nod to Alaskan native design. The first tries have been hard on the eyes, as can be seen with the Alaska Native Hospital off Tudor Road. The architects of Alutiiq Plaza, however, are the first to have pulled it off successfully, I think. Drive by this place at night and check out the native symbols on the pane of glass, which are lit to give the building an even more charming look than its already nice daytime appearance.

9.  Linny Pacillo Parking Garage

Linny Pacillo was known by many in downtown Anchorage as "The Meter Ferry". I don't know how many people she rescued by putting coins in nearly expired parking meters over the years (while irking the city), but her name lives on with the new Linny Pacillo Parking Garage on 7th Avenue. Opening around the same time as the new convention center across the street in 2008, the garage was built to make up for the large amount of parking spaces lost due to the footprint of the new convention center. A proposal for a skybridge connecting the garage to the Atwood Building across the street has been floating around for some time now. We'll see if that ever gets off the ground.

8. UAA/APU Consortium Library

In its 50-plus year history, I would say UAA (formally ACC) had two significant events when it comes to new developments: The first was the founding of the new campus in east Anchorage in the 1960s. The second significant event came in the earlier part of this last decade with the opening of the new consortium library. The bold exterior is one thing, but the interior is quite another, with its daring use of colors, materials, and a glass curtain that lets in large amounts of sunlight. This is without a doubt a break from the usual mundane and otherwise forgettable buildings sprinkled throughout the UAA campus. You don't have to be a student to check out the inside of this library for yourself. I highly recommend paying a visit and checking the place out.  

7. 3900 C Street

As mentioned earlier, an old complaint by Anchorage residents has long been about the amount of unimaginative box-shaped high-rises in midtown and downtown. The early 2002 opening of 3900 C Street in midtown Anchorage brought an end to that box-shaped building streak. 3900 C Street was also the first major office building to incorporate Alaskan native design elements, which would go on to inspire more developments in the following years.  

6. JL Tower

Near 3900 C Street sits the 14-story JL Tower — named after JL Properties, the developers (at least I'm assuming that's why its called the JL Tower) behind this building. What I love about this building is that it gives us our own sort of Empire State Building. Like the New York landmark, the JL Tower has its rooftop lit every night, making it visible from many parts of town with special colors commemorating holidays or special events. My personal favorite is on Halloween night when the building pulsates orange light along the same rhythm as a heartbeat, followed by a frantic-like blinking of the lights. To get more serious though, while the architecture of the building is overall splendid, its flat surroundings are quite unfortunate. The tower is also located on a side road, which results in the building not being in the sightlines of drivers going down any major thoroughfare in midtown Anchorage. I would not be surprised if some Anchorage residents don't even know of this building's existence.  

5. McKinley Tower Apartments

A restored apartment building may not sound like a big deal worthy of making it on a top-10 list, but if you've been in Anchorage a long time, then you know this is indeed a big deal! Built in the early 1950s, the McKinley Tower was a survivor of the 1964 earthquake, but did not survive building code standards, which resulted in its doors being shuttered shortly afterwards. In the 1970s, a shady developer bought the building at a city auction and planned to convert the building to office use. The plan never panned out as the developer ran into financial problems. Getting convicted for murdering his wife also did not help matters. By the 1980s, the city was left with a concrete windowless shell that was repainted pink. In came Marc Marlow, a developer who purchased the building and in the late '90s and started to sand off the pink paint. Financial problems came about, but with tax breaks from the city and money from the federal government in the 2000s, Marlow was able to move the project forward and bring the McKinley Tower back to its former glory. Upon buying the building, Marlow tossed around the idea of making it a hotel or condominiums, but the federal government required that Marlow restore the building to its original use (and its original paint scheme) for historical preservation, if he wished to get financial aid. My entire childhood consisted of seeing this building in its pink stage of life. Today, I can't get enough of seeing this building at night with some of its lights on, and an occasional flat-screen tv in view; it's a sight I never would have thought I'd see. Last I heard, Marlow is now working on restoring the tallest building in Fairbanks, which also happens to be abandoned. Best of luck to Fairbanks. 

4. Anchorage Museum Expansion

First building in Anchorage to be designed by a high-profile architect? Perhaps. In any case, 2009 saw the opening of the expansion wing to the Anchorage Museum after a decade in the works. Designed by British architect David Chipperfield, the new wing re-orientates the museum's official entrance so that it faces west rather than facing the federal courthouse across the street to the south. In addition to the new entrance and the parkland in front of it, the new building is equipped with modern security and temperature technologies, thus allowing the Anchorage Museum to host more high-profile events such as an Andy Warhol exhibit (which I think is later this year). This is the third time that the museum has been expanded, with previous additions being built in 1986 and 1973. The museum itself opened in 1968. 

3. Dena'ina Convention Center

Strictly from an architectural perspective, I would place the new museum ahead of the Dena'ina Convention Center. But when including other factors, such as the publicity it received, the controversy in getting the project approved by voters, and its potential in raising revenue for the city in years to come, the Dena'ina Center has to take the #3 spot. Rather than replacing the existing Egan Center two blocks north, the Dena'ina Center was built so as to become the main convention space while the Egan Center acts as spillover space for larger conventions and events. I don't have the numbers in front of me, but the Dena'ina Center absolutely trumps the Egan in terms of floor space. The new convention center also takes pressure off the Sullivan Arena by allowing more Aces games to be played at the arena while gun shows, home and garden, and other floor shows move downtown (at least in theory, that's what was touted). 

2. Concourse C - Anchorage International Airport

I know I have readership outside Alaska, so if you ever travel back to Anchorage, you don't have to go far to see what's new in the city. Upon alighting from the plane, chances are you'll be standing in the most visited new structure in the state. Concourse C, which has been in the planning stages since at least the mid-1990s, finally opened in the summer of 2004. On opening day, the public was able to roam around the whole concourse, including past the security check. To Anchorage residents, this expansion was a big deal. For the first time ever, the Anchorage airport contained elements previously found only in airports in the Lower 48, from horizontal-running escalators, to the CNN Airport Network broadcasting throughout the terminal. Down at the baggage claim, visitors can see advertisements on loop on flat screen televisions. The new addition to the airport has penetrated the consciousness of Anchorage residents to the point that the airport has been featured on the annual phone book twice. With the interior of the new concourse vastly different from the neighboring B concourse, which opened in the early 1970s, it is expected that the older concourse will see major remodeling work in the near future. 

1. 188 WNL

Like the JL Tower, 188 WNL is another 14-story tower that is worth making the list. Unlike the nearby JL Tower, however, the group behind 188 WNL took a different approach to developing the site. In a break from precedent when it comes to midtown development, 188 WNL is built in a more compact downtown-style layout. The building is built up to the sidewalk, while the ground floor has space for retail stores and restaurants. Parking for the building is in a nicely hidden garage above it. This building is the polar opposite of the JL Tower in that it gets everything right in terms of how it engages with the surrounding urban environment. It is a design aspect that will be increasingly needed as Anchorage continues to urbanize. While the JL Tower was built with the automobile in mind, 188 WNL has positioned itself so as to become easily adoptable into its changing surroundings in the many decades to come. Today, the building sticks out in a sea of surface parking lots and one-story buildings, but it is of course entirely possible that in several decades, the area will see pedestrian traffic and neighboring buildings of similar density. For all we know, perhaps one day Northern Lights Boulevard will have light-rail tracks down the center of the street, while cars travel in opposite directions at slower speeds thanks to the urbanized environment. Whatever may come about, this building — with its density and its street-level engagement toward pedestrians — will be able to blend in seamlessly. In such an environment, 188 WNL will be distinguished as being the first development in midtown to foresee this change. But for now, 188 WNL can enjoy being distinguished as being decades ahead of its time. For this reason, I award 188 WNL as the building of the decade.