Building a future beyond the anchorage land shortage: reaching for the sky, developers move upward and outward.

• Author: Johnston, Lori

The Anchorage Bowl has long been a trailhead of trade reached via the narrow mountain passes or wide margins of water that enclose it. Now suitable undeveloped acreage is shrinking and Alaska businesses extend this Alaska-Pacific trade center across Cook Inlet into the Matanuska-Susitna Valley, further up the Chugach hillside, and up in the sky.

"We try to be as efficient as we can because the land is getting more expensive," says Leonard Hyde, the "L" partner in JL Properties Inc., which has pushed real estate skyward. JL Properties focuses on Anchorage but monitors the peripheries, having bought and sold a 20-acre parcel of the Matanuska-Susitna Valley between 2004 and 2005. "Land is increasingly scarce; however, there is still land to develop in Anchorage," Hyde says, adding that redevelopment is also an option.

REDEVELOPMENT

JL's hotel lower at 1 Street and Seventh Avenue replaced an old parking lot. Redevelopment is "a different beast. We've done well with some redevelopment projects." Hyde says. "Others we haven't done as well. As an example, sometimes redevelopment requires retaining an existing building and anytime you go in and start modifying all existing building there is more uncertainty generally than if you start from scratch and build something new. There can be some enhanced risks."

As Anchorage businesses relocate or remodel to serve the changing needs of a fluid client base, land use changes. "We have changed the use on several buildings," says Hyde. "We redeveloped the University Center: we are in the process of redeveloping Boniface Mall. Most of what we are doing remains new construction."

Anchorage has invested in office space as skilled and unskilled services have supplemented government growth. "Government is a big driver, but the private sector has been expanding here continuously for more than 10 years," Hyde says. "I think it's a combination of reasons it's growing. Medical is probably the fastest growing private-sector industry here, but tourism has driven a significant amount of hotel construction. Alaska Native corporations have been growing significantly."

VALLEY BOUND

While JL Properties builds Anchorage up, others follow the population building out in the Valley. In 1995, Scott Johannes took over Criterion General Inc., a commercial construction company. "Overall business climate is just positive and a lot of businesses are reinvesting in other businesses and that has shown up as construction growth," Johannes says. "It's driven the prices up in Anchorage to the point that it's driving business to the Valley and we definitely see an increase in work in the Valley...