Vacant lots for sale on Turnagain Arm are hard to find, but in June 2006, Indian Valley businessman and longtime Indian resident, Doug Drum, along with John Tichotsky and his wife Mary, got serious about selling lots on the 104 acres they own in Indian Valley. They hired two realtors, Terry Beal of Dynamic Properties and John Blaine of Prudential Real Estate, to exclusively sell 35 lots from 2.5 acres up to 6 acres. It’s a unique opportunity for the two realtors and land owners, and with lots selling for an average of $200,000—millions of dollars could be made.The original owner of the property was Frank Lee, who homesteaded the land in 1931. He then sold it to James Delaney, who was the Mayor of Anchorage from 1929-1932. Delaney paid $100 for 112 acres.
“The Delaney’s tried to develop the land in a very intensive manner,” said Tichotsky, “but nobody wanted them to develop as many lots as they had planned; it was something like 90 lots. They ended up winning their lawsuit against the city to sub-divide it into 90 lots. But it was 1985 and ’86, and nobody was lending anybody money during that time. The Anchorage real estate market lost something along the order of 40 percent of its value.”
After a long drawn out legal battle to develop the land and a declining real estate market, the Delaney family lost interest in developing the property and sold it to the current landowners Oct. 2001.
Drum and his co-owners formed the Ledyard Group (named after one of the Captain Cook expedition members, and one of America’s first explorers who came to Alaska). The new owners sought community advisement on the type of subdivision they would like built, and decided to offer lot sizes no less than 2.5 acres on the average, limiting the total number of lots to 35.
The Ledyard Group invested more than $4 million to develop infrastructure in the subdivision starting with paved roads—the only subdivision on Turnagain Arm with paved roads—and burying all the utilities underground: telephone and power lines, gas lines, and finally investing in significant wetland’s mitigation, and tested each lot for private septic and wells on each lot—which the realtor, John Blaine, said was plentiful between 90-feet to 270 feet.
In the middle of 2005 the first lots went up for sale, but only two lots were sold due to a lengthy permitting process.
“We had lined up a lot of people to buy it, but the permitting process took so long,” said Tichotsky, “and the market took a little slide, and people weren’t aware of Indian, and it’s taken a long time for people to realize there’s a jewel out there on the Seward Highway. If they can afford the property then we’ve got a sale.”
The Chugach Park View subdivision is targeting a high-end home builder. The lots are being sold to individual buyers, who design and build their homes. And with lots starting at $186,000, it’s easy to invest $500,000 to $800,000 by the time the final nail is hammered down.“I don’t think anybody who is moderate income level is going to be able to afford Chugach Park View,” said Blaine, “unless they have a wonderful inheritance or win the lottery.”
It’s a blatantly honest statement—but true—not only for Indian Valley, but all the valleys along Turnagain Arm. The days of cheap housing and homesteading opportunities are long gone, and like Anchorage, large vacant residential land is a rarity. Whether you’re in Indian, Bird or Girdwood, residential lots of 2.5 acre or more are scarce, and real estate prices are influenced by supply and demand.
For the most part, Indian and Bird were overlooked by home buyers and realtors during the recent real estate boom. However, the two communities are slowly showing up on the radar screen of prospective home buyers and builders—especially the “baby-boomers” looking to move out to the edge of Anchorage (Indian and Bird are part of the municipality).
Indian and Bird are beginning to be recognized as quality places to live, close to Anchorage (12-14 miles from South Anchorage) yet still offering a rural setting, and that puts Chugach Park View in a unique position in the real estate market.
“It appeals to people who have lived in rural parts of Alaska and for whatever reasons moved to Anchorage and don’t want to live in an urban area,” Blaine said. “Here they’re 20 minutes away from a supermarket and 20 minutes away from skiing.”
There’s also movement in high-end real estate markets across the Western states in the Lower 48 for homes and properties adjacent to National Forest and Park lands. That movement appears to be catching on with Anchorage home-buyers and people moving to Alaska.
Chugach Park View offers views of Turnagain Arm and mountain and valley forests. It is also surrounded by private parcels and beyond that is Chugach State Park offering wilderness at the doorsteps of home owners. The scenic area and wild open space is the greatest selling point of the subdivision, and it sells itself, Beal explained.
“This is one of the most scenic and well done developments that I’ve seen in 15 year in land sales,” he said.
So far, Beal and Blaine have sold nine lots with 20 lots left. The larger lots sold first, with the only six-acre lot being sold along with some five-acre lots. What remains are lots between 2.5 and 3.2 acres. Currently two homes are under construction, including a 6,000-square-foot home.
There has been talk that Indian Valley and Bird Valley are the next hot real estate markets in the Anchorage area, but the limiting factor is developable land.
“There are some vacant parcels in Bird and Indian—I’d say under ten,” Beal said. “If you had 30 more houses in this area, you wouldn’t see much of a difference. It’s going to be an extraordinary experience for the few people that can build homes.”