Amid a housing crisis, a new downtown Anchorage development could be a model for public-private partnershipsIn an interview before he took office last year, Mayor Dave Bronson painted an idealistic vision for what downtown Anchorage could look like.
Longtime Anchorage developer Shaun Debenham is working to make that happen this summer with a new 48-unit market rate housing development called Block 96 at the corner of 8th Avenue and K Street. Last year he partnered with the city’s Community Development Authority, which owns the land Block 96 will sit on. The city putinto the $11.
But market rate housing downtown is limited, and new construction is scarce. Only two new multi-family housing projects have gone up in the area in the last few decades. Some developers like Debenham are working to change that, but it requires creative financing solutions and a lot of commitment to seeing the project through.
Other developers have approached the housing crunch with creative solutions. Seth Andersen, an Anchorage structural engineer, last year completed five snug condos in a downtown lot that was originally zoned for a duplex. “If the public has money to put into incentivizing housing, I’d rather see it put into a use that would benefit multiple different housing developers downtown,” Andersen said.
Debenham expects Block 96 will break ground in the next few weeks and be completed by the end of next summer. And developers and housing advocates are waiting to see whether it’s a success — and if it can attract more investment to the area.
Is this so the oil barons can afford cheap enough bureaucrats to keep turning the meat grinder? So transparent. Alaska akleg