Alyeska Resort announces plan to build housing complex
By Soren Wuerth
TNews Editor
Alyeska Resort announced it will build a 40-room, dorm-style housing complex near its hotel in the upper valley in coming years, a project that is part of a three-phase housing plan that would add 200 to 300 beds to the valley's rental market.
A Resort spokesperson made the disclosure Wednesday during a meeting of Girdwood's Housing and Economic Committee. Postcards from the Resort advertising a Feb. 7 community meeting began appearing in Girdwood post office boxes this week.
"We wanted to be a part of your conversation in workforce housing and let you know how many units we're planning in the years to come. and, ahead of the community meeting, it makes sense to keep an open dialogue with the [Housing and Economic Committee]," Willam Laurie, a planner for Alyeska's owner Pomeroy, told the group.
The dorm building would be followed by a cluster of six-plex and eight-plex apartments and, eventually, townhomes near the Resort's hotel. All the units would be open to residents of Girdwood and others, Laurie said.
Apartments in the dorm building would each have a bedroom and bathroom. The "co-housing" concept has tenants sharing a kitchen, laundry and communal space. The lower part of the dorm building would be lined with storefront and retail space would be "available to all Girdwood businesses and not just the Resort," Laurie said.
Laurie said the concept follows a survey of Alyeska staff in which the company received "400-500 responses".
"The upshot was they wanted private space. So private space with affordable housing," Laurie said.
While Laurie was vague on details, his news offers promise to a sorely-needed affordable housing crises, a demand cited by proponents of a massive subdivision of mostly single-family homes they call "Holtan Hills", which would be behind Girdwood's school. The Anchorage Assembly will hear testimony on the Holtan Hills plan Tuesday night.
"[The housing complex] not only allows restaurant workers and lifties to live in these, but allows for people to move up with their families of if they have a spouse they want to live with, to encourage that as well," Laurie said. "... [We will be] working with anyone from day care to the school to firefighters to any one in Girdwood who needs housing."
He did not give an estimate on the cost of the project or rental prices, but said the housing will not be sold. He asked the committee for help locating information collected for the Girdwood Area Plan, in which the Resort has not yet participated.
Information prepared by a contractor, Huddle AK, estimated Girdwood would require 235 units over the next 10 years in keeping with population growth, overcrowding and repair or replacement of older facilities.
Cards sent by the Resort to local box holders Tuesday listed two separate dates and claimed the meeting will be "a joint meeting" with Girdwood's Board of Supervisors and Land Use Committee, but both groups do not have meetings scheduled for that date.
Laurie said his company hopes to begin construction next year and that the project will be completed 18 months later.