Stone Law Building Rises in Downtown

Construction has continued at a rapid pace at the corner of 5th Avenue and A Street in downtown Anchorage, site of what will become the Stone Law Building. As the name makes quite clear, the new building will be home to Stone Law Group, an Anchorage-based law firm that I believe already has a presence downtown. Despite the building being just two stories, it appears that it will be split to house two tenants. A real estate website lists the building as having restaurant space. 

Architecturally, I appreciate that the building's corner that faces the intersection will be curved. Facing a one-way street on the outer boundary of downtown, it softens the building's impact as drivers coming from the Glenn Highway into downtown approach it. As for the building's main color, while I originally thought of it as a bit odd, black does seem to be the fashionable color of choice for building facades these days, as can be seen when looking at the new building projects that arose recently in downtown Anchorage. I'm also glad to see that the building goes up to the sidewalk, giving that street corner a more urbanized definition. Interestingly, a closer look at the artist rendering shows what appears to be a large taxidermized bear ready to greet at the entrance. Should this bear actually materialize and be visible from the street, it will make for an excellent "welcome to downtown" marker. 

The Stone Law Building replaces a mid-century, one-story building that once housed the Rice Bowl, a restaurant that offered Chinese-American cuisine. By the 1990s, the restaurant had abandoned that building in favor of another location, and the building had since remained vacant with the exception of a brief time when it was a cafe in the mid-2000s.