Downtown Anchorage in 1980

Just wanted to share this impressive aerial photo of Anchorage that was posted on Twitter the other day. The photo, taken from the eastern end of downtown, was purportedly taken in 1980. Visual evidence immediately suggests this must indeed be the case as both the ConocoPhillips and Atwood buildings on 7th Avenue are noticeably missing from the scene (both would be completed later in 1983). The reason why this photo really grabs me is that it finally reveals to me what the site of the present-day Anchorage Museum looked like before the 1986 expansion — arguably the most dramatic expansion in the museum's history. But before I get to that, I want to note some other interesting points about this photo.

A before and after view looking down 5th Avenue.

Through this photo, we get a clearer view of what the site that is today home to the 5th Avenue Mall looked like shortly before the mall's construction and 1987 opening. I already had an idea of what the block looked like then, but it required detective-like work of scanning through numerous ground-level photos, often taken years, if not decades apart, thus resulting in a hard-to-grasp idea of what the block looked like by this time period. We also get a view of the block that is now entirely occupied by the mall's parking garage. We see that only half of the block was lined with buildings, while the southern half had become surface parking by this time period. The businesses on the northern half of the block were mostly made up of bars; that end of the block was on 4th Avenue, after all. 

Photo by Stephen Cysewski. This block no longer exists.

Interestingly, today the block has sort of flipped and it is now on the 5th Avenue side that businesses can be found, as the parking garage is a mixed-use structure housing retail space at the ground level. Unfortunately, however, retail has struggled to take hold below this garage, and most of the retail spaces today lie vacant. I suspect that the garage's location next to C Street does little to help matters. Since becoming a major arterial road, C Street has become the unofficial demarcation point that divides the more prosperous west downtown from the more stagnant east. I know I've alluded to C Street in this manner in previous posts over the years when discussing the boundaries of west downtown Anchorage. 

Overall, I think this block was better off as it was in 1980. I don't like parking garages — nobody really does. I'm sure city leaders were celebrating the demolition of that collection of "seedy" businesses on 4th Avenue at the time. But when compared to what faces 4th Avenue now, those buildings, and the businesses they housed — no matter what kind of judgement and prejudice they may have endured — were far better for the overall streetscape and vitality of the area. I suppose the overall economic trade-off leans in favor of the parking garage as it meant thousands of residents were coming back downtown for modern retail shopping, vastly outweighing what economic benefit those bars were bringing in. But the fact that a trade-off had to be made in the first place speaks to the sad state of affairs in which automobile traffic and the storage of cold steel machines must take priority over established businesses that supported the livelihoods of its owners and employees, all in the name of economic well-being. Ideally, both the mall and the businesses on 4th Avenue would co-exist without the need for a garage, though I suspect some will go further and argue that a truly ideal world would be one in which there is no mall to begin with. After all, shopping malls represent commerce relocating to the suburbs in order to remain near the American upper and middle classes whom had fled city centers in the second half of the 20th century. Urban malls were a remedy to this problem, but with largely mixed results.   

The same stretch of 4th Avenue today.

Finally, I want to get back to what initially intrigued me the most about the aerial photo. I know that the Anchorage Museum in its current incarnation is the fifth generation in a series of changes that go back to the museum's first major upgrade in 1973. But while I was around for the museum's latter two upgrades in 2008 and 2016, I was not witness to the museum's pre-1986 existence. That is to say that while a portion of the original 1968 building (and its 1970s slight extension) survived the sweeping 1986 upgrade and provided me some clues, I largely had no idea as to the original building's relation to the block it once solely occupied. Questions like, "Did it occupy the entire block?", and even, "What direction did the building face?" lingered in my mind whenever I thought about the original museum's footprint. This picture answered all those questions. What immediately surprised me was the fact that there was once surface parking on the property. I realize this should not be particularly shocking — this is Anchorage after all — but when the post-1986 renovation is all you've ever known, it can nonetheless be jarring to see a familiar urban site in a suburban-style layout. 

Naturally, a photo like this is also encouraging because it demonstrates that suburban-style properties can indeed evolve to make maximum use of the land and increase the density of a given area. It reminds me that, for instance, the Office Depot on 5th Avenue and Cordova Street, with its on-site surface parking lot, does have the potential to be replaced with something that contributes meaningfully to downtown. But what's particularly striking is that not only was the Anchorage Museum not afraid to kill off its surface parking lot, but it did not bring back on-site parking even when the opportunity presented itself again decades later. When the neighboring fire station was demolished in the late 1990s to make way for the 2008 museum expansion, the westside of the block, today parkland, could have easily become a parking lot. After all, we live in a suburban nation in which development must cater to drivers, with their demands for convenient parking and drive-through access. But rather than resurrect free on-site parking, visitors to the museum have to find parking in the surrounding city blocks (and often for a fee). A subterranean garage does exist beneath the 1986 portion of the museum, but it isn't large enough to accommodate all visitors, and it's closed during weekdays. It was quite an admirable move on the museum's part to choose good urban form over automotive convenience. 

Aside from the museum, I cannot really think of another large-scale example in Anchorage in which post-war suburban development has given way to a dense, pedestrian-friendly development. The only place that comes to mind is the 188 WNL tower in midtown. Once housing a single-story restaurant with a large parking lot, the site is now home to a 14-story tower that extends out to the sidewalk with room for retail space at street level. In contrast to its car-oriented surroundings, 188 WNL is decades ahead of its time, which was the reason why I dubbed it "Project of the Decade" years ago. With the city running out of developable land and a climate crisis at our hands, formerly car-oriented sites like the Anchorage Museum and 188 WNL represent the way forward for midtown, east downtown, and other commercial hubs in the Anchorage bowl. 

The 1973 extension is the oldest remaining piece left in the museum complex.

Downtown Anchorage Construction Rundown

It's been years since I've last posted a construction rundown list, so I thought I should get on this now that we do have a few projects that are either under construction or have been recently completed. 

Key Bank Plaza Renovation

It's hard to believe that the Key Bank Plaza was built a half-century ago. But indeed, the midrise building opened in 1972, then as the home to Alaska Mutual Savings Bank. Having been built during one of the more unfortunate periods of architecture, it isn't really surprising to see this building get a facade makeover. The building was damaged by the 2018 earthquake, and with the departure of Key Bank and the flagship Starbucks store, the owners apparently decided now was the time to give the building a facelift. I should note that Peach Investments owns the building -- the same company that owns other properties on the same block, including the First National Building and the 4th Avenue Theater. If I recall correctly, they also own 188 WNL in midtown. The new facade will without a doubt make this the boldest piece of mid-rise architecture in the city. Right now, I would say the most unique-looking building in Anchorage is the ASRC building in midtown. But unlike the ASRC building, the new facade for the former Key Bank Plaza has more grace and aesthetic appeal without trying too hard. According to the architects, the facade is meant to evoke the form of glaciers -- a design inspiration you would have thought would be tried by other developers by now. Fun fact: as a teen in the early 2000s, I thought at the time that the Key Bank Plaza would be a good candidate for a complete facade makeover. My idea for a design was nothing like what we're seeing now though. 

Condominiums on the Park Strip

            

I'm really happy with the way these two condominium blocks turned out. Each replacing single-family homes, both buildings house four units each, and they continue the trend of residential densification along Delaney Park on the 10th Avenue side. I dream of one day seeing both sides of the park strip lined with two to five story buildings with the park serving as a common space for recreation and relaxation. Each weekday morning would witness "the great crossing" in which South Addition residents would walk en masse across the park to their jobs in downtown (this already happens to a small extent). There is just so much potential for 9th Avenue and 10th Avenue. Delaney Park, originally a firebreak and then a runway, is such an incredible asset for downtown Anchorage. Unfortunately, the 9th Avenue side of the park from L Street onwards hasn't seen new construction in decades. With there being a strong call for housing in downtown, 9th Avenue seems like a logical place for low to mid-rise residential buildings. Back to the two condominium blocks under review here, I'm really glad that there is no garage or driveway in the front. Residents here walk down the stairs and onto a path linking to the sidewalk. In the late 2000s, another set of condominiums further east on 10th Avenue were built as snout housing, with the garage taking up prominent space in the front. It's not a pretty site...

Bootleggers Landing

Here is another residential development that has come into being since my time off. Bootleggers Landing is among the latest residential properties to sprout up in the Bootleggers Cove neighborhood just west of downtown. The property contains eight units in total with each unit being three stories tall. A garage fitting one car is also included with each unit. Considering that there is no garage visible from the street, it's safe to conclude that parking is in the rear -- another win for this development. Instead of a garage greeting passersby, the Scandinavian-inspired building features mini lawns with a sidewalk reaching up to each door; these are basically a modern take on rowhomes. I should note though that there is one garage entrance in the front, which is how vehicles access the back area. What I found personally interesting as I drove up to see this development for myself was the shapeshifting form it takes as I drove towards it going west on 8th Avenue. Coming from the east, the building appears as a large black windowless mass -- a very striking and unusual site for any neighborhood. This is due to the fact that the units and their windows are slanted westward so as to get the most out of the view of Cook Inlet to the west. But the result is you get a building that is akin to Darth Vader when approaching from the east. I suspect some will see this as a design flaw that does not take the neighborhood into consideration, but I find the building to be a great addition to the neighborhood nonetheless. Its architecture is beautiful and looks to have been designed using superb materials. And of course, more density is always welcome. Previously, the site was a grassy empty lot that housed a small cottage that had been on the site for many decades.   

Downtown Edge North                            

Another new housing development in downtown that I checked out sits not in Bootleggers Cove, but on the northern bluff of downtown overlooking Ship Creek. Downtown Edge North saw construction commence in 2018, when a warehouse occupying a small portion of the unoccupied land was demolished. The project, which is located on Christensen Drive, was made possible with cooperation from the Alaska Railroad, which is leasing out the land on a 95-year term. The development is to contain 22 condominium units, according to The Peterson Group. I'm not sure whether the project was downsized as an earlier news report in 2018 stated the project was to contain 35 units. When I drove by the site late last year, it appeared that roughly half the units had been completed, with the rest of the site remaining vacant. I'm hopeful the project will be fully realized. Unlike housing in Bootleggers Cove, residents at Downtown Edge North will have more immediate access to downtown Anchorage businesses, giving it a huge advantage over other condominiums in the area. The housing project also sits right next to the starting point of the coastal trail that goes out to Kincaid Park.  

Coastal Place

Heading back to Bootleggers Cove, Coastal Place is a condominium completed in 2021 and located near the top of the bluff. In the photo above, you can see the Peterson Tower looming close behind. With the best views of the inlet coming from the top of the bluff, it is not surprising to see a development like Coastal Place come into being at this location. Prior to construction, a small cottage sat on the property for a number of decades. As of January 2022, half of the six units have been sold. Not surprisingly, the two units on the top floor were the first to go off the market as they each contain a 2,000 square foot private deck on the roof.   

Susitna Flats

Among my more favorite projects to rise out of downtown Anchorage recently is the Susitna Flats apartments. Located at the west end of 9th Avenue facing Delaney Park, the building contains eighteen units -- twelve one bedroom and six two-bedroom units, with parking underground. Though rent starts at more than $2,000 per month, I'm just glad to see new apartments go up downtown. For so long, downtown Anchorage has had a drought when it comes to apartment construction. Not including Elizabeth Place, another new apartment building mentioned earlier in this blog, I believe the last time new apartments came into the market in downtown was around 2009 with the opening of the McKinley Tower Apartments -- yet that was merely a restoration of an apartment building that fell into disuse decades earlier. When I saw construction start on Susitna Flats three years ago, I had assumed this was just another condominium, especially given its location next to Bootleggers Cove. 

The wall of facades running along the Delaney Park strip.

Besides being apartments and not condominiums, I'm also glad to see this building extend the wall of building facades that face the Delaney Park strip on the 9th Avenue side. From L Street westward, there is a bit of a consistent wall of three-story building facades that face the park. Yes, there are major gaps between some of the buildings, but for Anchorage standards, this is the closest we'll get to the Central Park feel. The addition of Susitna Flats gives this stretch of 9th Avenue a nice bookend, though if there is one thing I would wish for, it would be for the Susitna Flats to be at least one floor higher. 

Qanchi Place

Finally, I want to return back to the heart of downtown Anchorage where we find this recently converted apartment building. Located on 8th Avenue, this four-story building was originally built in 1961, and until becoming apartments was home to Duke's 8th Avenue Hotel. Cook Inlet Housing Authority had since acquired the property and converted it into a 28-unit apartment building with one and two-bedroom units. Rent starts at $750 with the website stating that income restrictions may apply. With Qanchi Place now complete, downtown Anchorage is now home to two new apartment buildings in the central business district. It's quite a feat, considering that the heart of downtown has not had new housing of this sort and at this scale in decades. This was made possible thanks to Cook Inlet Housing Authority, which besides Qanchi Place was also behind Elizabeth Place. 

New Hotel Rises in Midtown

New hotel as seen from 36th Avenue.

 I usually don't care to report on suburban style hotels that are under construction as Anchorage has seen more than enough of these unoriginal and often straight-up ugly buildings being built over the last 20 years. I'm not about to write that this project here is an exception, but rather I just wanted to point out two positive attributes that this project carries. The first thing I want to note is that this building will not have the same tiresome slanted roof and beigetone colors. That said, a quick Google search for Aloft shows me that this will be a clone of every other Aloft hotel in the mainland United States. The architecture is refreshing for Anchorage standards, but not really original. But I do appreciate that this hotel will be close to the street. Placing buildings right up to or near the street helps to give the street definition, and an area like midtown is definitely in need of that. 

Plaza 36 as it looked in 2002 and in 2020 (right).

The other point that I appreciate about this project is that unlike all previous chain hotels in Anchorage, this will be the first to involve redevelopment. Instead of being built on vacant land, the Aloft hotel will replace a large strip mall that has sat at the corner of 36th Avenue and C Street for decades. Upzoning to a higher density is almost always a good thing, and it is actually just the continuation of the story that has played out in this part of midtown for the last 20 years. Until construction of the 10-story ASRC building in 2002 kicked things off, the site was home to a trailer park, a go-kart track, and the aforementioned strip mall. Four low-rise buildings and the 14-story JL Tower have since been built in the area. It is actually quite an uninspiring site of single-use office buildings surrounded by a sea of asphalt. At night, it is a complete dead zone. Amusingly, the hotels developers, who are the same developers behind the rest of the office park, say that hotel guests will be treated to live music on Friday nights. I'm sorry to say, but unless surrounding areas both within and outside the office park dramatically change, this area of town will never be "cool" with both guests and residents. 

While it is unfortunate to see the land developed in such an unattractive car-centric style over the last two decades, the addition of the hotel does eliminate the last low-density building in the area and brings everything up to a higher level of density. Also, a hotel will mean there will technically be "residents" staying overnight, thus making this office park "mixed use"; but that might be too generous of a bestowing. 

A Slew of New Apartments For Muldoon

A before and after of just some of the new buildings in Muldoon

It's great to see higher density development coming along in Muldoon. Located in the southern half of the Creekside Town Center, five new apartment buildings were completed in the time that I've been gone. Creekview Plaza 49, made up of two buildings with 49 units total, is a mixed-use site with units limited to seniors. Creekview Plaza II, which sits next to Creekside Plaza 49, also contains retail space at the ground level (currently occupied by Northrim Bank) and is open to all ages. Lastly, two buildings making up Woven House lie to the south of the Creekview buildings. Woven House is also limited to senior housing. All five buildings are three stories high and sit alongside the busy Muldoon Road thoroughfare. Together with the new Grass Creek North apartment buildings, it can only be expected that the residential population in the T-intersection of Muldoon Road and Debarr has substantially risen.    

Creekview Plaza II - photo by Ken Graham

Of course this was by design as the intersection of Muldoon and Debarr was designated as a key spot for a town center nearly 20 years ago. In the late 2000s the first housing units were built in what was then empty fields with a dying creek. In 2009 I did a bit of a tour of these housing units. But for a long time after that, there was no new residential construction. A Walgreen's store was built nearby, followed by a strip mall a decade after the first residential developments came into being. But now with the large amount of new residential units constructed suddenly in just five years time, the area seems better able to have residents and commercial business feed off each other. 

Creekview 49 - photo by Ken Graham

Yes, Creekside Town Center is unfortunately in a suburban car-centric landscape. But this setting was dictated by suburban commercial development that came decades before the urban concept of a town center came to Anchorage. It's simply difficult to retrofit big box stores into a more pedestrian-friendly environment. But what makes this place unique is that unlike most of Anchorage's sprawl, this area in question truly is seeing a mix of commercial and residential bumping up against each other. Residents in the new Creekview, Woven, and Grass Creek apartments have 10-15 minute access by foot to two large grocery stores, three banks, a pharmacy/mid-size grocery store, a gym, a library branch, and government services. Oh, of course we can't forget Anchorage's only Krispy Kreme. The dine-in options are quite interesting as residents in the area can walk to a Thai, Mongolian, and two sushi restaurants. There was once an Applebee's in the area, but it has since closed. But then again I'm not sure anyone misses that place. 

New buildings that make up Grass Creek North

Elizabeth Place - Downtown Anchorage

Elizabeth Place includes ground-floor retail.

Unlike in 2010 when I made a list of the top ten projects to rise in Anchorage during the 2000s, I did not publish such a list for the closing of this last decade. But I've thought to myself that if I were to decide on what was the most significant project that would top the list for this last decade, it would probably have to be Elizabeth Place. Yes, there have been multistory housing projects built elsewhere in the city, not to mention more high-profile projects such as a dramatic museum expansion, but the significance of Elizabeth Place is its location in the heart of Downtown Anchorage. Numerous media sources reporting on the recently completed Elizabeth Place have given different timespans, with one source saying this is the first downtown residential development in ten years, another saying this is the first development in 30 years, and still another saying this is the first residential project since 2006. But the residential developments being referred to were not in the heart of downtown. There were of course a number of trendy multistory residential buildings built in the Bootleggers Cove neighborhood as well as in South Addition, but while the term downtown often tends to include those two neighborhoods (and even Government Hill), they do not makeup the downtown core. It is true that in 2006 a four story condominium was built on 7th Avenue and Cordova, but again, it is not in the downtown core. In terms of residential construction in the commercial center (between L Street and C Street), it has indeed been more than 30 years.

I can't say this for sure, but from what I know of, the last significant housing development in the core of downtown is the old Duke's 8th Avenue Hotel, which by the way has recently been restored into apartments by Cook Inlet Housing Authority (the same non-profit behind Elizabeth Place) and is now called Qanchi Place. Though it was formerly a hotel, there have in fact been Anchoragites who called that place home (I personally knew a family friend living there in the late 1990s). This property has been around long enough that you can see it in the 1963 postcard of Anchorage from my last post! Having been built in 1961, it has been over half a century since dense housing came to the heart of Downtown Anchorage.    

Hopefully Elizabeth Place will act as a wetting of the feet from which other developers would come into downtown to build market-rate housing on other sites, particularly those occupied by surface parking. The quest to fill empty lots in west downtown has played out over the course of several years as evidenced by my post back in 2014 when the city sold downtown property it owned in hopes that the land sale would spur redevelopment. For a long time I have looked to the surface parking spaces, including the one now occupied by Elizabeth Place, and imagined them being home to a wealth of five to six story mixed-use residential developments. Whether we see other developments follow remains to be seen. But with trendy developments around downtown's periphery continuing to be built, the area continues to further cement itself with a unique identity which should in turn attract more people and thus more demand for downtown living, including inside the core. With Downtown Anchorage already among the top desired neighborhoods in polling, I'm optimistic for downtown in the long run.

  

Aerial View of 1960s Anchorage

Anchorage aerial as seen in 1963.

Seen here is an aerial view of Anchorage as it appeared before the 1964 earthquake. It's a postcard that I purchased at an online auction around a decade ago thus bringing the postcard's journey full circle back to the city with which it depicts. The back of the postcard is signed, "to Gary" and dated August 1968. While I did wonder to myself, "who's Gary?", I was more interested in pinpointing the year of this postcard, which really didn't take long to figure out. With the J.C. Penny department store in the center right only occupying half of its eventual footprint, it's clear this photo was taken in 1963. A year after its 1963 grand opening, the store would be demolished following the 1964 Alaskan earthquake. The string of storefronts along the northside of 4th Avenue between E Street and C Street are also visible, seen here before their literal downfall due to the liquification of the soil during the following year's quake. 

But what really gets me is just how green the Anchorage townsite looks. It's a jarring contrast to the present-day downtown cityscape, even more so when you realize that downtown's present-day appearance was largely complete just 20 years after this photo was taken with the topping out of the then ARCO Building and Atwood Building, still the city's two tallest buildings, in 1983. It's a visual reminder of the frenetic pace of redevelopment that came with the pipeline era. But it is impossible to ignore the downsides that came with this frenetic change. In this picture, two whole blocks were ultimately replaced with parking structures. A third block, home today to the Dena'ina Center, was cleared for surface parking. While that block is no longer parking, a number of surface parking lots scattered throughout downtown Anchorage remain. It is a reminder that redevelopment does not always equate to progress. Replacing cottages and small commercial buildings with higher-density apartments, condos, and office towers through upzoning is not just a sign of a maturing city, it is also indicative that the city's planning department is serious in responsibly managing a city's growth. However, replacing entire blocks of homes and buildings that house people in favor of concrete structures that store machines on wheels (which sit idle for over 90% of their lifespan) is not responsible in the slightest. It stems from a desire to outside accommodate automobile users by creating parking availability for them. But it comes at the expense of creating a patchwork of buildings surrounded by surface parking and garages which further take away a city's character and further perpetuates the idea of a 6pm city center that is not meant to be lived in.

The same view seen today.

 

Hotel Indigo - Downtown Anchorage

I've been gone for just a bit, but I wanted to go ahead and add the proposed Hotel Indigo development to the record. The project was developed in close cooperation with the Anchorage Community Development Authority (ACDA) and announced to the media in early 2020, just before the pandemic. The 12-story building was to be a mixed-use property with 32 apartment units and space for a restaurant on the ground level, in addition to the 178-room hotel. But what made this project most unique was the nature in which this building was to be built. Modules for each living-space unit were to be constructed in China and barged to Anchorage with each module stacked atop another resulting in a Lego-like rise of the overall structure. Additionally, the parking garage facing 6th Avenue was not to be demolished but rather was to serve as a backbone to the hotel and apartments. 

Construction was originally slated to start in May of last year but was delayed following contractual disputes between the developer and the ACDA over scheduling for the temporary removal of the city's transit center. The construction date was thereby moved to August of 2020. However, as of summer 2021  the project has been indefinitely postponed. In other words, it could perhaps be said that this will be another project that will go into the dustbin of projects that never came to be. It also marks yet another failed plan for the problematic People Mover Transit Center. Five years ago this blog covered a previous grand plan which called for a great reduction in transit center space and the addition of a large retail tenant. As a side note, ironically the doomed Hotel Indigo development would have been built across the street from where the Augustine Energy Center would have been built had that project not been cancelled many years earlier. 

Anchorage Considers Permitting Mini-Houses

Just thought I'd post a link to this article recently published on the ADN regarding the growing popularity of these miniature-sized homes, also known as granny flats or in-law homes. Not that this is the sole demographic for which these houses are marketed towards -- can be quite the opposite, actually. With city leaders in Anchorage eager to provide more affordable housing in our already tight market, changes in the municipal code are being considered in order to streamline the permit process for building these little homes. Among the more feasible options in clearing code hurdles is to have a cluster of homes together akin to a trailer park with a separate building in the mini-community that offers guestrooms and a laundromat.

ANMC Expansion Takes Shape

Construction continues on the new towers at the ANMC campus that will house overnight patients and their families. A skybridge will connect the main hospital to the housing units and adjoining parking garage. Don't know the official completion date, but it seems that it will be ready for open by fall.