Construction tops off summer: projects booming across the state.

• Author: Harrington, Susan
• Position: CONSTRUCTION

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The Alaska construction industry is in full swing with hundreds of projects across the state underway pumping billions of dollars into the Alaska economy. A quick poll of a handful of architects, engineers, and general contractors resulted in a few dozen projects for a sample of the building going on this summer.

The Alaska Department of Transportation alone listed more than a thousand projects, and many bids will have been decided by July with construction started, depending on funding. Motorists have been slowing down for construction workers in the double-fine construction zones for months now. Money started hitting the street before the late snows ceased and more will have by July.

Southcentral

One of the largest multi-year vertical projects currently under construction in Anchorage is the University of Alaska Anchorage Seawolf sports arena, named the Alaska Airlines Center in March. The 196,000-square-foot facility is expected to be complete next August, and Cornerstone General Contractors is hard at work this summer on the $109 million project. In May UAA held a topping out ceremony when ironworkers affixed an evergreen tree to the last iron beam, hoisted it to the top of the building, and bolted it into place. More than four hundred people attended the ceremony, which is a centuries old tradition among ironworkers and earlier builders to signify the top of a structure is set. The facility will seat 5,600 and be used for sports, graduations, and other community events. It was designed by architects Hastings+Chivetta and McCool Carlson Green.

In June, Neeser Construction, Inc. had mobilized and set up field office trailers, getting ready to break ground and begin the new UAA Engineering and Industry Building in the south parking lot across from the current sports arena. The projected $123 million, 81,500-square-foot facility is expected to be complete in summer 2015. It was designed by architects and engineers Livingston Slone, Inc. Several other projects are ongoing at the UAA campus as well, including the approximately $2 million MAC Dorm Renovation being done by Watterson Construction Company, Inc.

Across the street from UAA, Davis Constructors and Engineers, Inc. continues completing phases of the $150.3 million Providence Generations project, a multi-year project aimed at modernizing and expanding Providence Alaska Medical Center for generations of Alaskans. Slated for completion in 2014, work began in 2011 and includes renovation of 100,789 square feet of existing surgery, pharmacy, sterile processing, and materials management space and construction of an 85,782-square-foot Maternity Center. The Newborn Intensive Care Unit was recently expanded and modernized as part of the phased project.

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Davis will also be doing some site work this summer on the Providence Transitional Care Center, along with projects at the Lake Otis Medical Plaza and Alaska Neurology Center. In downtown Anchorage, the company built the Covenant House Alaska Replacement project; with construction complete and landscaping and furnishings being finalized, move-in is anticipated this month or early August.

Davis is also working on a residential...