Ketchikan construction booms.

• Author: Bonham, Nicole A.
• Position: Ketchikan, Alaska

It wasn't supposed to be this way. With the closing of the mill, Ketchikan was supposed to be facing a recession. Instead, it seems as if the whole town is being rebuilt.

Walk almost any stretch of Ketchikan's waterfront this summer and step lively, construction abounds. To the onlooker, the racket of hammers and drills and the legions of hard-hatted workers spell growth and prosperity.

But this is Ketchikan, Alaska, right? It's where the nation's media converged in March to tell the story of a struggling timber-town facing certain economic demise with the closure of its largest employer, the Ketchikan Pulp Mill.

So how, mere months later, can Ketchikan appear to be hopping, a new "development central" in Southeast? Interestingly enough, the two situations - feared blight and fresh growth - are occurring simultaneously in the state's First City.

Certainly, the loss of the pulp mill is already felt in Ketchikan, both through the exodus of displaced workers and the loss of their dollars in the community. But, at the same time, more than a dozen major building-projects, both speculative and natural expansion, are coming to fruition simultaneously this summer. It's a phenomenon that, if even temporarily, has diluted the scent of impending economic doom.

For some developers, the two scenarios playing out in Ketchikan are mutually exclusive. Others sense that such growth, and continued faith in the tourist dollar, is risky and fragile in nature. In either case, new construction and zoning permits are keeping planners at the Ketchikan Gateway Borough busy.

Construction at a Recent Fill-time High

John Bowler, who analyzes economic development trends for the borough, reports that six commercial building permits were issued during the last half of 1996, with nine already out by springtime this year.

"The thing you obviously have to observe about most of the new construction is that it's almost all retail, visitor-oriented," Bowler said.

Sockeye Sam's, the multi-faceted Spruce Mill development, an announcement of expansion at the Westmark Cape Fox Lodge, a new hotel north along the Tongass Narrows - each is a multi-million-dollar project.

Outside the realm of tourism and off the waterfront, there's a new vision clinic, a pharmacy, also planned expansion for the Ketchikan General Hospital and a Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium Native-health clinic in the works. The Best Western Landing Hotel & Restaurant and Westside Service, a Chevron-affiliate gas station, both underwent major springtime renovation, altering and expanding their respective sites. A heavy-industry site on Ketchikan's south side has also undergone major reworking to make way for a new dry-cleaning service and commercial laundry.

New Look for the Waterfront

Still a working waterfront for commercial fishermen and industry, Ketchikan's dockside is nonetheless getting a makeover, a cosmetic facelift in the way of several large-scale retail centers designed with tourists in mind.

The mix is juxtaposed "blue-collar Alaska" and "high-class curio" - a fitting contrast that describes Ketchikan's own struggle with its future.

"The visitor industry has been growing rapidly since about 1992," Bowler said. "My sense is that it's probably going to continue to grow, which is not necessarily a very popular thing with a certain number of...