Serving Anchorage's Inner Child: Construction on Alaska's only Dave & Buster's nearly complete; hiring underway.

• Author: Orr, Vanessa
• Position: Building Alaska

Construction is almost finished on the new Dave & Buster's at the Dimond Center in Anchorage, and people are getting excited about its March opening. The first entertainment complex of its kind in the state, it not only took the vision from the mall's owners but the cooperation of the Alaska Legislature and the efforts of a lot of skilled craftsmen to bring this project to fruition.

"Alaska has been so opening and welcoming to us; it's overwhelming how many people helped us pull this off," says Oso Adams, general manager of the Anchorage Dave & Buster's, which will be one of the company's largest facilities in the country.

Embracing the Vision

About five years ago, Hugh Ashlock, partner and second generation owner of Dimond Center, attended a shopping center conference where he watched Dave & Buster's CEO Stephen M. King unveil a prototype of a new company concept.

"What I saw was a sports bar on steroids with a great restaurant, lots of private dining, and more experiential retail--it was a wonderful transformation of the Dave & Buster's concept," says Ashlock.

Visiting Dallas the next day, Ashlock toured the prototype and expressed interest in bringing it to the 49th state. Roughly seven months later, the company started looking at expanding into Alaska, but there were challenges that first needed to be overcome.

"We had to get the law changed in respect to gaming for prizes," says Ashlock. "While games of skill, like skee-ball, were no problem, any type of game that involved chance, like a Spin to Win, was considered gambling and was therefore illegal."

Senate Bill 157, an act defining arcade-style amusement devices that was introduced by Senator Lesil McGuire, passed unanimously by the Alaska Senate and House and was signed by Governor Bill Walker, paving the way for construction on the new Dave & Buster's to begin. But the project's challenges didn't stop there.

"We had to figure out how to shoehorn a 50,000--square-foot addition into our shopping center," says Ashlock. "So we decided to raise 25,000 square feet of roof on our second floor to create the arcade and midway."

Raising the Roof

While architects, engineers, and construction companies are used to dealing with the unique issues that working in Alaska presents, it's not often that they get involved in actually raising the roof of a mall.

"The biggest part of this project involved raising the roof about six feet to get the clearances that Dave & Buster's needed," explains Dennis...