Construction roundup: Summer 2017.

• Position: Building Alaska SPECIAI SFCTION

Techniques in winter construction continue to improve year after year, but summer still remains the ideal construction season for the majority of Alaska projects. Alaska Business has compiled a sampling of some of the projects that have been completed, are in progress, or are breaking ground this summer season.

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Anchorage: UNIT Company

UNIT Company has been selected to construct Muldoon Garden, an approximately $5.5 million project owned by the Rural Alaska Community Action Program, Inc., a private, statewide, nonprofit organization "working to improve the quality of life for low-income Alaskans," according to the organization's website.

The Muldoon Garden project expands the units of affordable housing offered by the Rural Alaska Community Action Program in Anchorage from about 254 to 274 and brings the number of affordable housing developments in the city to more than a dozen.

Construction on Muldoon Garden commenced in October 2016 and is expected to be complete in November of this year. As part of the Muldoon Garden project, which is about 22,000-square-feet, an adjacent building (the How How Chinese Restaurant) has been demolished and UNIT company will construct twenty units of permanent affordable housing with office space as part of Rural Alaska Community Action's Safe Harbor program, which provides transitional housing for homeless families with children with the primary goal of obtaining permanent housing for each family within six months of them joining the program.

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Currently there are about fifty transitional housing units available through the Safe Harbor program. The Muldoon Garden project will help Rural Alaska Community Action with its goal of providing case management services for families onsite and to create partnerships for other services including childcare, mental healthcare, financial literacy, and employment services.

The Muldoon Garden development is also part of the nationwide Living Building Challenge pilot program, which began in August of 2015 and runs through June 30, 2017. The pilot project calls for seven teams across the United States to build developments with nontoxic, sustainable materials and energy and water systems that have a positive impact on the environment and surrounding community. McCool Carlson Green is the designer for the Living Building Challenge project. To meet the challenge requirements, McCool Carlson Green will design...