America's newest whipping boy: Wasilla

Being that this is a blog based out of Alaska, I suppose I'd have to acknowledge at some point that my governor is running to be the second most powerful person on Earth. With that, these last three weeks or so have been quite amusing as we Alaskans watch the world's discovery of Wasilla (Sarah Palin's hometown for those of you living in NORAD) like rubberneckers at the scene of a car accident. It may be ugly to watch... but we have to watch! And oh is it ugly! As my fellow Anchoragites can attest, Wasilla has long been the whipping boy of our city as the lower income blue collar town of some 9000 residents is home to several taxidermy services, "saloons" instead of bars, and our favorite place to shop -- "Knik Kountry Liquor". Over the years, our young sister city in the Valley has not faired so well in fixing its image crisis. As Anchorage physically matures in its urban appearance, many of the trailer mobile homes being removed to make way for office buildings have been known to relocate to Wasilla which welcome trailers with open arms. Mobile homes headed down the highway to Wasilla... not the greatest image a town would want in the minds of potential residents and businesses. And as the national and international media parachute into town since McCain's choice of Palin as VP late last month, they too are now being exposed to the creepy crawly creature that is Wasilla, Alaska. But it's not just the issues of Palin's former church, or the high amount of underground meth labs that has the media talking in negative light about this town. It's also Wasilla itself and its urban form, or lack thereof.

"...A town that is a soulless strip mall without sidewalks" is how New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd gently put it when describing the urban scenery of our beloved Wasilla during a recent visit to the 49th state. The Wall Street Journal had a great article that went into detail about Wasilla's urban dilemma as it goes through the growing pains of fast paced suburbanization at the cost of making long time residents feel out of place while also loosing its honor as the starting line of the annual Iditarod dog sled race due to so many driveways and roads being cut through the Iditarod trail. "Wasilla has neither a planning nor a zoning board, and it shows", wrote Michael M. Phillips for the WSJ article. I think I most enjoyed the piece written by The New York Observer's Joe Conason who when interviewing a local school official (who shall remain nameless) proceeded to tear her own hometowns pride to shreds:

"Wasilla is a hellhole, even by Alaskan standards, where there are plenty of hellhole towns and villages. Wasilla is an ugly place that shows a complete absence of planning, design, or sense of public vision".

You know your city is bad when not only does it meet the basic hellhole requirements, but also impresses the Alaskan Division of Weights and Measurements in meeting the local standards of what constitutes a true All-Alaskan hellhole (North Pole, Alaska is #1). But to stop this from becoming a bash-Wasilla fest (which I know is tempting for many of you out there!), I think we have to acknowledge the fact that Wasilla is not the only city of its kind. Since the days when the automobile replaced the horse and the Interstate highway replaced dirt roads, Wasilla is only taking its cues from the rest of the United States. There's a reason why the Home Depot, Wal-Mart, Target, Burger King, etc. fit so well into Wasilla without the hassle of having to conform to some sort of specific building code. Anchorage is just as guilty of this too. Of course compared to Wasilla, Anchorage clearly cozies up to zoning and planning, but all one needs to do is look at the haphazard development in Midtown to see that most of our city history in the late 20th century shunned what we now have coming in the form of the developing Title 21 codes. It was all about winning the land-grab south of downtown and building whatever you wanted. And to this day we still have commercial building developers and state transportation planners who are still in this mindset that it's 1968 when concrete and the automobile was the way of the future. I have no qualms about the Highway to Highway project as it looks to be promising with a portion of the highway being buried underground, but the Knik Arm Bridge?? The thought of giving a long term future to what we've been doing in Anchorage for the last 40 or so years is insane and reckless.

With this in mind, can Wasilla ever pick itself up and plan for the future in a time where gas prices are continuing to rise, environmental concern is now mainstream, and the automobile backlash is sweeping towns and cities across the country? Maybe so, or maybe not. Maybe not in that an article from Newsweek interviewed a Wasilla city-planner who tells the story of a man back in the 1980s who was fired and had his effigy burned in the parking lot of the city office after attempting to tweak and add restrictions to the city's comprehensive plan. But then again, maybe there is hope. Plans are in the works for the Valley's first town center. Though totally artificial and nowhere near the center of town, Creekside Town Square could be promising. But then again the proposal is already swept into political scandal involving the mayor of Wasilla and a deal cut with the developers while The Frontiersman reports that the development will look more like the sprawl retail already found up and down the Parks Highway. Add to that the major disappointment of what Glenn Square in Anchorage has become in terms of being pedestrian friendly along with the plans falling apart for Muldoon's town center. Whatever the case, if Wasilla thought being the whipping boy of Anchorage was harsh, they might wanna prepare for the long term when it comes to how the Lower 48 will critique their towns physical appearance should Sarah Palin's star continue to shine nationally in the decades to come.

a leasing ad for Wasilla's Creekside Town Square:

JL Tower's LED display finally gets its due

I was kinda surprised as I picked up the Sunday edition of the ADN this morning to see that the LED lighting of the new JL Tower made the front page. Ermm... the penthouse of the new building has been lit with blue, green, and even red (for a short time) since the dark nights of December '07. So why report on the towers colorful floodlights now? Well apparently the lighting show has finally been tuned after tweaking around with the display since late last year. Okay, well that's cool. What I find really appealing about the buildings nighttime appearance however, is the white floodlights from the ground that brighten the entire building facade. Despite making the building look as if it's clamoring for even more attention, I really liked the idea of bathing the whole facade in light (just as long as it's on only for the early evening and not the entire night). Anyways so todays article goes on to interview the developers at JL Properties as they talk about how they have used recycled materials as tabletop counters, exercise rooms for employees, a Kaladi Bros. cafe, blah blah blah. I guess what I found really amusing was the urban analysis that a consultant who was interviewed for the article used when describing the future prosperity of the area where the JL Tower sits:

"The building is a harbinger of what's to come... The area is attractive to builders because of its expanses of undeveloped land, especially compared to crowded downtown".

Expanses of land? More than half of the available land in that area is gone! Unlike downtown, which has public parking garages readily available to the benefit of developers, the developers behind 'Plaza 36' squandered the former trailer park neighborhood with acres of surface parking lots for their buildings. Each of the parking lots for the JL Tower, ASRC, and Centerpoint Plaza have a larger footprint than the building itself. From the appearance of it, it seems only the new Alutiiq Plaza and the AlaskaUSA Financial Center have more building and less parking (I could be wrong though). Anyways the consultant goes on to say:

"From a public transportation point of view, it makes sense to concentrate offices in one area because it's easier for workers to take the bus".

If we're going to talk about it from a public transport point of view, I think it would have been preferable that the buildings in the Plaza 36 area give up some of their ego and join the heart of Midtown rather than be on the edge of Midtown in a sea of asphalt. In other words, do what the developers behind 188 West Northern Lights did and build a tower that truly cares about the future of Anchorage. Unlike the JL Tower, 188 WNL is situated between Northern Lights Boulevard and Benson in front of C Street -- perhaps the most visible location in the city today. The building offers space for ground floor retail while the parking garage is snugged quietly into the building. A first for Anchorage that deserves positive recognition. Instead of the People Mover bus making a detour to serve the new Plaza 36 office park on the edge of Midtown, workers in the JL Tower could have walked to existing bus stops already in place in the heart of Midtown, had the JL Tower been located there instead of the edge. With that, here's a map that shows the remaining land available for the developers at JL Properties when including surface parking:

click to enlarge

Knik Arm Crossing resolution stalls

With the national media now beginning to take notice on that other bridge to nowhere, Tuesday night saw the resolution asking for the Assembly to drop the bridge from its long range transportation plans stall a bit. It may first sound unbelievable when you hear that the Anchorage Assembly voted unanimously for the resolution, but before you react, there's some details you gotta know. Assembly members Dan Coffey and Chris Birch removed wording from the resolution that asks for the Assembly to immediately drop the Knik Arm Bridge from the city's transportation agenda. Instead, the bridge is to be re-reviewed by AMATS (the state and city transportation board) and again put before public testimony. Sheila Selkregg, when interviewed on Channel 2 later in the night, remained optimistic as she pointed out that the resolution still retains its ultimate motive of seeking whether the bridge should be dropped.

So it looks like we will see a repeat of what we saw in 2007 when the then conservative Assembly added the Knik Arm Bridge to the city's long range transportation plans. In other words, we will see more testimony from KABATA (the bridge and toll authority overseeing the project) as they answer questions such as the costs and environmental impact, while another public testimony before the Assembly is expected later. Unlike 2007 however, I predict the results will be different in that we will indeed see the bridge knocked out of the AMATS agenda of fund worthy projects. Why? Well as I've said in my previous entry, times have changed. I'm willing to go as far as to say the bridge today is more unpopular than it was last year. And if you were at the Assembly last year during public testimony like I was, then you know how passionately Government Hill residents and others were against this project. Supporters of the bridge in last years public testimony were a small minority. But now one year later, George Wuerch, the former mayor appointed to lead KABATA, has resigned. Henry Springer (or as I call him, Henry Kissenger's long lost brother) , who was KABATA's spokesman, also left along with the deputy director (who shall remain nameless since I don't know his name). On top of that, the issue of federal earmarks and bridges to nowhere are returning to the national headlines thanks to Sarah Palin, while gas prices have soared bringing Mayor Begich to sign a deal with Mat-Su Borough Mayor Menard to establish a regional transit authority earlier this summer. In other words, it appears this will be a slower death blow for the bridge rather than a fast one. Even without considering the outside factors that have occurred since last year, the Assembly has the votes to please Mrs. Selkregg and Patrick Flynn. It's not the public that decides in the end whether the bridge stays on the AMATS board. Here's my prediction on the voting that will probably take place later this year after public hearings:

Flynn: Drop the bridge
Drummond: Drop the bridge
Gray-Jackson: Drop the bridge
Sheila Selkregg: Drop the bridge
Claman: Drop the bridge
Gutierrez: Drop the bridge
Coffey: Keep the bridge
Starr: Keep the bridge
Birch: Keep the bridge
Ossiander: Keep the bridge
Johnston: Keep the bridge
Mayor Begich: Drop the bridge

Unlike last year, Drummond, Gray-Jackson, and Gutierrez have all replaced formerly conservative seats. In 2006, Selkregg replaced conservative Ken Stout (who was a very scary guy when looking at his philosophy of how urban development should be). Again though, I just wanna stress that if and when the Assembly drops the bridge, this will NOT be the end. After this, it will be up to Governor Palin to reallocate the federal money upon Assembly request.

Assembly to target Knik Arm bridge

Perhaps it's news to some, but for many of us, all we were saying was "wait for it". And now that time is about to approach. Assembly members Sheila Selkregg and Patrick Flynn -- both of whom are members of the AMATS board (the state/city transportation agency) will be asking the Assembly next Tuesday to withdraw city support for the bridge and reallocate the millions in federal money to other projects such as upgrades to the Glenn Highway, and public transportation. Of course that decision to reallocate the federal money would come from our Sarah Palin. With the heat she's getting worldwide for lying about being against the 'Bridge(s) to Nowhere', I wouldn't be surprised if she ends up eagerly sending the 63 million in federal money back to Washington all for the delight of receiving positive PR. Anyways, before the Anchorage Assembly saw its massive change of seats earlier this year, the previous two members of AMATS were Dan Sullivan and Bill Starr. Representing the then conservative Assembly, both were able to get the Muni to support keeping money for the bridge. Times have changed since then however, and now a more liberal Assembly has replaced Sullivan and Starr with Downtown's Patrick Flynn, and Sheila Selkregg. Combine them with AMATS third member, the mayor, and you have a 3 to 5 majority (assuming the other two members who are state officials vote to retain support of the bridge). With the bridge project lacking an update on its current cost, its loss of George Wuerch and another member from the board overseeing the bridges construction, along with high gas prices and a renewed nationwide focus on what is being done with federal money, expect the Assembly to put a nail on the coffin for this one. I'll probably be at the Assembly to watch in joy.

Patrick Flynn's take

The walls come down

Well today was a milestone of sorts for both the Dena'ina Convention Center and the Pacillo parking garage in downtown Anchorage. Concrete barricades that left a portion of 8th Avenue, G Street, and F Street down to one lane are now gone this weekend as construction on the convention center and parking garage wrap up. Also 7th Avenue between G and F is entirely open to traffic (yeah I had to drive on it right away) while the portion of F Street that was under heavy reconstruction this summer between 6th and 7th opens as well. Of course I could care less about becoming a traffic reporter as the real goodies to see were the sidewalks and the buildings themselves. New light poles, benches, facades, and overall street/sidewalk designs make the area of F and 7th look like an oasis, or a piece of another city that landed down in Anchorage. It's really a weird feeling... kinda sterile with that feeling of newness as your entire environment around you is new. But then again, we're not just talking about your typical street and sidewalk upgrades that happen around the Anchorage bowl -- we're talking about the overnight rise of an entirely new high density district in Downtown. It's one thing had the convention center, the Pacillo garage, and the brick pattern streets came one by one over a period of a decade or so, but we're talking about all of them opening at once. Anyways the opening to the public of the Dena'ina Center should be in mid-September -- perhaps on the 18th. I'm not so sure though because the ADN reports that it will be on October 18th. Heresy! I've been hearing radio ads announcing that Damon Wayans will be performing in the Dena'ina on October 3rd. I suspect the ADN has a correction to make... or maybe Damon Wayans plans on opening to an audience of 0. Anyways I did at least try in my own effort to get into the convention center this morning, but the doors were locked :(

E Street, F Street projects coming along

Besides the Dena'ina Convention Center, and the Pacillo parking garage receiving its finishing touches, the E Street Corridor Project and the F Street Connectivity Project are impressively coming along faster than I had personally thought they would. Not that either project was expected to replicate the disastrous Arctic Boulevard rehab of 2006-2007, but I'm quite surprised with F Street in particular. While E Street is still nowhere near completion and will easily go into the 2009 construction season, F Street is looking like it will be open for traffic at any day now. Sure, unlike Arctic Blvd., only a short quiet stretch of F Street is getting reconstructed, but still, just 3 months ago there was a gaping hole in front of the Sub Zero bar. With that -- and the fact that F Street, like E Street, is to replace its asphalt with bricks, I was expecting construction to move into 2009. But now by the looks of it, F Street could be open by the time the Dena'ina Center opens in mid-September. Meanwhile, E Street is at, I'd say maybe 5% completion. 6th Avenue between G and D was totally shutdown this weekend as work crews tore up the intersection of 6th and E. Surely many of you on the road this weekend found out the hard way.

images:
F Street near completion, Raised intersection at 5th and E nearly complete, plant foundation

blueprint of the E Street plans (PDF)

Cuddy Family Park to finally open this weekend

Well after who knows how many years, Midtown's Cuddy Family Park is finally set to have its opening celebration this Saturday. It's kinda funny as I remember way back in 2001 or so when Channel 2 sent out Jason Moore to cover what was suppose to be the quickest construction of a city park ever. With the shovel ceremonies in the background, Moore was reporting on how a large group of volunteer workers were to work around the clock and into the night so that the park can be open for the public 24 hours later. Perhaps the army of volunteers realized you're going to need more than a volunteer effort to create a sizable lake, eh? Anyways after many years of sitting there and even showing signs of neglect, the Cuddy Family Park is finally set to have its opening ceremonies this Saturday, August the 23rd. Just like any midtown family park, the ceremonies will of course include some sort of children's parade, remote control boat races, and food. Afterall, there's parks, and then there's family parks (you gotta watch for that). Seriously though, I really am glad to see this park finally be complete. With the Municipality developing a master plan to urbanize Midtown, I suspect this park will act as a focal point for which its surroundings will be developed more responsibly. With large scale office buildings, and the city library already in its immediate surrounding, this park is just asking for a pedestrian friendly cityscape so it can become easily accessible more so than it can be now. Once that happens, I could see Cuddy Family Park becoming the park for Anchorage, trumping Town Square in Downtown in terms of foot traffic. After all, while Downtown is filled with gift shops and hotels, it's Midtown that has, for us locals, become the new downtown. With retail, cinemas, and non-touristy restaurants a-plenty, hardly any of us locals find ourselves spending time running errands in Downtown. Midtown on the other hand is in heavy need of some sort of public space. To wrap it all up, I basically would like to see some major traffic calming on C Street, wider sidewalks, benches, lights, and sizable mixed-use buildings bordering the park. CORRECTION: I guess I should have looked more into the history of the park before mocking the park's lack of construction progress through the years. Apparently the park did in fact open in 2001 and was only recently closed to create the pond and build the speed skating oval. Even more interestingly, the Muni wanted this parcel of land to be a park since 1983! Umm.. my bad.

New development proposed for 6th and E

So I come back from a break in Europe to find out some developers are eyeing major opportunity now that the E Street Corridor project is under way. I say great! Judging by the sketch, I think the building looks gorgeous as it fits in nicely with its neighbors in terms of scale in the Town Square area. Also proof that not all new developments in downtown have to be "the new tallest in the city".

Now should the Town Square Center and the Augustine Energy Center (just two blocks away) rise from the ground simultaneously in 2009, I can't think of a better message to send that downtown is back. It's one thing to have great civic projects such as the new museum and convention center that invest in the city, but it's another should outstanding private developments such as the Town Square Center become reality. I think it's the private developments that really showoff downtowns viability to compete with Midtown.

188 WNL featured on Sunday's ADN

An opinion piece in todays paper praises the new 188 WNL in midtown for its unique architecture and mixed-use layout that complies with the city's developing midtown plan as well as Title 21. Of course I gotta let you know the online version includes an audio slide show with commentary by a rep for Ruby Investment as well as the project manager. A good building deserves good press.