The Changing Face of Spenard

I've been wanting to cover this story for a while now. Those who have passed through Spenard over the last year may have noticed that a multi-building project has been underway at the corner of Spenard Road and 36th Avenue as well as alongside Chugach Way. The three buildings under construction are to make up what will be known as Ch'bala Corners, an affordable residential development that will feature multifamily and senior housing. Two of the buildings that will be fronting Spenard Road and Chugach Way will be three stories high and contain a combined 40 rental units. A third building that is also located on Chugach Way, a once seedy side street, will be two stories and contain eight units. The buildings will open in phases, with all three expected to be open for residents by the end of July. As can be seen in the image above, Ch'bala Corners (left) replaces a used-car lot and an abandoned mechanic shop. 

Looking west from 36th Avenue.

It's pleasing to see how the design of this project came out, and on a larger scale, it's pleasing to see the trajectory that this part of Spenard has taken in recent years. Regarding Ch'bala Corners — formerly known as Spenard East — the buildings are placed alongside Spenard Road, 36th Avenue, and Chugach Way, with surface parking and parkland located in the rear from which the buildings will somewhat wrap around. The first building that rose last year sits at the corner of Spenard Road and 36th Avenue. With the corner of the building meeting two busy thoroughfares, it would be great to see a greengrocer or some sort of retail space occupy that portion of the building. Unfortunately, it appears none of the buildings making up the Ch'bala Corners project will be mixed-use. I have read before that Cook Inlet Housing Authority, the non-profit group behind this project, has had trouble with signing retail tenants to its other mixed-use properties in Mountain View and Muldoon. But overall, the design of Ch'bala Corners is nonetheless an improvement when compared to Cook Inlet Housing's previous high-profile project, 3600 Spenard, which disappointingly fronts Spenard Road with a parking lot in the front. That said, having a new apartment building along Spenard Road that is single use with no retail at ground level is going to make for an awkward and bizarre site. It's quite unfortunate.  

Ch'bala Corners as seen from Chugach Way.

As alluded to earlier, the Ch'bala Corners development marks the latest in a string of projects along Spenard Road that is giving the area a new identity and sense of place while also providing Anchorage with rental units that are badly needed. Cook Inlet Housing closed the previous decade with the opening of 3600 Spenard, a three-story mixed-use residential building that sits opposite to Ch'bala Corners. The non-profit group then went on to open ThirteenTen West 32nd, a three-story apartment building that sits just off Spenard Road on—you guessed it—West 32nd Avenue. Outside of downtown, I cannot think of a better location for these new developments other than Spenard. For more than a decade, Cook Inlet Housing has been focusing on building affordable units in Mountain View and Muldoon, but those neighborhoods are located in the far-flung corners of the city. Mountain View itself is cutoff from the rest of the city due to the Glenn Highway. In contrast, Spenard sits between downtown, midtown, and the airport. The Spenard neighborhood also carries a cultural cachet and identity that no other neighborhood in Anchorage has been able to match, particularly among the bohemian crowd. It's obviously no match to Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood, but for Anchorage standards, it's a destination with character that is worthy of more housing. Going forward, the city should seek ways to spur private market-rate housing in Spenard, so as to not rely solely on public housing initiatives.  

New Archway Proposed for 4th Avenue

On Saturday, what was suppose to be a day at the dogsled races was nothing of that sort. With little snow, and temperatures hovering above freezing, this year's Fur Rondy dogsled championship was cancelled. But what did go on was a ceremony dedicating a new archway in honor of George Attla, a veteran of the races who took more victories during the race's long history than anyone else, and who recently passed away. But I'm not sure whether the arch was intended as a memorial to him originally. After all, this archway, which will apparently dub the area as the Mushing District, has been floating around for more than a year. But whatever the case, there you have it. 

I find the idea of archways intriguing. I was in San Diego last year and saw archways hanging at the Gaslamp Quarter, Hillcrest, and Little Italy neighborhoods. But whereas people in San Diego have been referring to those neighborhoods by those names long before the arches went up, I'm pretty sure nobody in Anchorage had ever regarded this section of 4th Avenue as the Mushing District. In other words, it feels too contrived. What sets this part of downtown apart so as to deserve its own place name? There's no theme among the areas businesses and no unifying architecture that defines the area. Part of me thinks this is the city's way of trying to spur positive development along this portion of 4th Avenue. After all, the arch will stand next to the one remaining block of "seedy 4th Avenue". But I don't think there's much that can be done to the more general area. Unlike west 4th Avenue, with its quaint small shops lined up next to each other, a block into the new Mushing District is met with block-sized buildings with blank walls. It kills pedestrian activity and explains why nobody bothers to venture east past C Street. It was a mistake to allow a parking garage to take up an entire block on one side and allow Holiday Inn to build a block sized hotel on the other side. And having the miniature highway of C Street going through it also doesn't help. But I digress. 

By the way, this isn't the first time an archway has been called for in Anchorage. A few years ago there was a proposal to put archways in Spenard. But while Spenard attempts to display its bohemian credentials, its not-so-bohemian reliance on automobiles makes Spenard a non-memorable place in which parking lots dominate the fronts of buildings, and where nobody walks from one place to another, with the exception of the giant strip mall that the neighborhood revolves around. Placing an archway in an suburban environment like Spenard would just look awkward. As miffed as I am about this new "Mushing District" arch, downtown is certainly a better venue to be hosting this kind of street decoration.

Spenard Adopts Two-Lane Plan

Spenard Road

Read all about it here. While the ADN refers to the plan as 3 lanes, it's really just two for the center turn lane really shouldn't be counted as a travel lane. For a neighborhood that likes to talk up its progressive credentials as a forward looking neighborhood, it's nice to see Spenard finally join the 21st century. Unlike bohemian neighborhoods in cities in the Lower 48, it's hard to take Spenard seriously when considering that it is surrounded by traffic going at 45 mph while the commercial heart of the hood is a strip mall surrounded by a sea of asphalt that is almost always packed with cars. And to top it off, much of the business community fought hard for many years against making the road safe for bicyclists and pedestrians. 'Embarrassing' would be my word to describe the current state of Spenard. Hopefully this is the start of more dramatic changes to come in the next several years.

btw while we're at it, here's a look back at a quick concept I drew up for Spenard a couple years ago.

Spenard Reconstruction: My Take

(click to enlarge)

Just thought I'd upload this little diddy I made on how I envision Spenard one day looking like. I wouldn't so much call it fantasy as it is more of a reasonable prediction on Spenards future within the next 50 years. The stretch in question is that of the intersection with Benson north to Fireweed Lane; the same stretch under discussion by the city as it looks to reduce Spenard from four lanes to three. While the city looks to bring Spenard into the 21st century and more in line with its increasingly bohemian and bicycle oriented culture, there are several business owners who prefer to keep Spenard in the 1950s. The problem with todays Spenard is that there is no turn lane which results in cars weaving in and out of traffic, cars collecting up behind left turning cars, and no bicycle lanes. Combine the three and accidents are waiting to happen, which they have. Some business owners and others who are simply uneducated will claim that construction on Spenard will result in another Arctic Boulevard fiasco in which access to businesses will be hindered by road and lane closures. Interestingly, these critics of Arctic are silent on the finished product that construction on Arctic Blvd has brought about. Critics claimed that reducing Arctic to two lanes will result in more congestion. In fact the opposite is true. Also, all businesses along Arctic have survived. If anything, opposition to Spenard reconstruction seems to be more about partisanship than the street itself. Newly elected Mayor Dan Sullivan stated in an ADN interview shortly before he took office last year that he is open to experimenting with reordering the layout of the road to see how tests fare. Yet the posters with the cruel caricature of former Mayor Mark Begich still hang in the windows of businesses that want to keep Spenard in the 50s.

While the city's current plans call for Spenard to go from four lanes to three (with a turn lane), my proposal seeks to narrow Spenard down to two lanes flat. In my plans I also added an intersection (a raised intersection at that). As we speak, the city is in the process of realigning one of the side streets that feed into Spenard so as to align with the opposite side street that leads to the Bear Tooth Theater. With this construction work happening, Spenard will finally have side streets that meet and make a four-way intersection possible. I decided to go ahead and add stop signs in one scenario, and a stoplight in the other for this future intersection. I also decided to add colored bike lanes, which have become more common in cities around the world along with bicycle boxes, which the city has been exploring. Bicycle boxes allow bikers to wait at a stoplight directly in front of motorists so as to be visible and not runned over by vehicles making right turns. Some may see narrowing Spenard down to two lanes as extreme -- but it's not. Once upon a time 4th Avenue in Downtown was four lanes. Today, at two lanes and a 25 mph speed limit, 4th Avenue is not going through any armageddon as some Spenard business owners predict will happen to them. Lets also not forget that half of Spenard is already at two lanes anyways. In this already existent two lane section of Spenard, Gwennies still serves huge breakfast plates to tourists, the Harley Davidson shop has doubled in size, one hotel expanded, two national chain hotels were built, and a Village Inn restaurant along with a few other businesses have opened. Just don't expect Spenard reconstruction opponents to remind you of that.

btw I should note that not all business owners along Spenard are opposed to the project. Among the major supporters of reconstruction is the owner of REI, the largest business in Spenard.

Spenard transformation controversy continues

I know it may start to become repetitive to our local readers whenever I post an article from the ADN that many of you may have already read earlier in the day, but I like to keep this blog as sort of a record/archive on all things urban related that even I myself can refer to when needed. Besides that, most of our readers actually come from outside. Ex-Anchoragites? Probably. Regardless, the holidays have been keeping me busy, but no I did not miss the extensive Sunday article 2 weeks ago on the long continuing controversy surrounding the transformation of a stretch of Spenard Road. Nothing really new in the article other than some new specifics on what will happen to an arterial road as well as the T-intersection of Fireweed and Spenard. Read the article and graphs here.

As for the Joop editorial, well I'm optimistic that the city learned from the nightmare that was the Arctic project. As a resident of West Anchorage and growing up attending West High, I can tell you that the span of Spenard from Fireweed all the way to Minnesota is indeed a disaster. Many seem to have a hard time believing that a two or three lane Spenard will be good for business, but look at the stretch of Spenard from Northwood to Airport Road in which Spenard goes from four lanes to two. Harley Davidson, Puffin Inn, and Gwennies(sp) Restaurant appear to be doing fine these last 20 years or so since the improvement while numerous new businesses such as hotels, dine-in restaurants, and a couple of coffeeshop trailers have sprung up in that stretch of Spenard over the last 10 years. Unlike lower Spenard however, the area of Spenard currently in question has something going for it that no other part of town has. Call it "hipster paradise" or whatever you want, but there's no question that Spenard has become what the city has long wanted Mountain View to become -- a bohemian district. From the numerous cafes, to the bicycle shops, to the ultra popular (and crowded) Bears Tooth Theater, Upper Spenard is culturally blossoming. What's hindering this new identity however is the 1960s era planning philosophy that puts cars and concrete as priority #1. Bicycle lanes, less surface parking, and mix-use buildings are some of the many solutions that will not get in the way of this new community as demonstrated in cities like Portland, Seattle, Vancouver BC, and other places that are taking smart growth seriously. Check out the visions had for Mountain View within the next 20 years as posted by Clark at his blog. Like 4th Avenue, Spenard and Mountain View can have their own hotdog vendors on the streets along with musical acts playing in a park. Lets not forget that west 4th Avenue itself was at one time a four lane road.

Bottom Line: Enough with the complacency. The Muni needs to reach out and be proactive in building its case for this great road improvement.