Anchorage: Anchorage grows with new community vision.

• Author: Bohi, Heidi
• Position: TOWNS IN TRANSITION

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When Mayor Mark Begich moved into City Hall in 2003, there was one lone crane silhouetted against the Anchorage midtown skyline. Today, just five years later, they can be seen all over town, just one of the many indicators he says that Anchorage is in transition.

"Just look around the city," he says of the construction craze that is the talk on the streets and the most significant building period Anchorage has witnessed since the Project '80s when oil royalties resulted in the Egan Civic and Convention Center, the Performing Arts Center, the Sullivan Arena and the Anchorage Museum of History and Art. "You can see it, you can feel it--the city is vibrant, we are growing and becoming more of a metropolitan area and people are happy to see stuff happening."

EXPANDING QUICKLY

After years of talk, the Alaska Center for the Performing Arts has a new roof. The once-distant dream of expanding the Port of Anchorage is becoming a reality. The long-debated Dena'ina Civic and Convention Center is opening this fall. The $116 million Anchorage Museum and Rasmuson Center expansion, including a public plaza and two-acre year-round park, is slated for completion by 2010. Even the little things, he says, like having an ice rink downtown and a big New Year's Eve celebration, are all signs that Anchorage is entering its 50s with a certain joie de vivre.

Although midtown continues to position itself as the city's business district and there are developments under way on almost every corner, what Begich and his economic development specialists and planners cannot stop talking about is the boom they refer to as the "Downtown Extreme Makeover"--the theme being used as a mechanism to provide up-to-date information on the various projects that are happening in the heart of the city between 2007 and 2009.

Until 2003, when Begich was first elected, there had been very little downtown development for 10 years and businesses were locating their offices in midtown. When the current administration came into office, Mary Jane Michaels, executive director of the Office of Economic and Community Development, says, the goal was to create a livable city that would attract tourism and generate more business development in the community. "We began by focusing on downtown, because every great city has a thriving downtown area," she says.

At the time, the Anchorage downtown comprehensive plan had not been updated since 1983 when Mayor Tom Fink was in office. Partnering with Moore Iacofano Goltsman Inc. (MIG), a nationwide consulting firm specializing in community planning and urban...