Anchorage: 2115: 'we'll achieve great things'.

• Author: Harrington, Susan
• Position: Management of Anchorage Economic Development Corp. - Column

Anchorage in one hundred years will be very different, though it's hard to say in what ways.

I remember first coming to Alaska in July 1979; I landed in Anchorage and overnighted before catching a flight out to Bristol Bay. I rented a car and drove around Downtown, ending up at the Port of Anchorage, and actually driving out on the docks to the end. It was a misty day--or night--who knows what time it was because of the endless light from a seemingly never setting sun. It was magical though, I do remember that.

In one hundred years I expect the misty magic of Anchorage will still awe those who arrive for the first time and might hold throughout their stay. Fourth Avenue, an iconic corridor, will still be here, and I imagine it will be lined with vertical structures reaching into the sky. Plans are already underway to transform the Fourth Avenue Theater into a twenty-eight story mixed-use building designed to house condos, residential rentals, and various business establishments. It might be the only one like it in five or ten years when it's completed, but in one hundred years? Fourth Avenue will be lined with even taller buildings.

I see Midtown changing dramatically; the full spectrum of businesses will eventually be razed and replaced with more high rises until that's all there is. Mixed-use will be the new norm. With the scarcity of land facing builders now, in one hundred years there will be no empty lots, and no deteriorating buildings. South Anchorage will have expanded its business district as well, and become a nearly self-contained city in itself.

The city will have expanded across Cook Inlet in both directions--across the Knik and Turnagain arms--the bridges doing double duty as tidal power generators. The roads will all be wide, smooth, and level with constantly resurfacing and mending nanopavement; currently...