Girdwood Town Square project left high and dry
Crow Creek Road construction drained funds from other community projects
By Karen Garcia
Turnagain Times Correspondent
Girdwood’s downtown development project had extensive goals when it came to remodeling the town’s main commercial center, including paved roads with sidewalks and a beautifully landscaped public park.
However, completion of the project may never be realized due to a national problem that nearly every individual, business, and state is familiar with in the current recession—a shortage of cash.
The surprising aspect of this case, however, is that enough money had initially been appropriated for Girdwood’s downtown development. A number of years ago, U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens identified $10 million for Girdwood economic development that came through the U.S. Department of Transportation. This money flowed from the U.S. Department of Transportation to the state DOT, which made the decision to use the funds for two purposes: one was to pave a portion of Crow Creek Road and construct a new bridge over California Creek, and the remainder of the money was to go towards other community projects.
$6 million was set aside for Crow Creek Road improvements, while $4 million was left for the Town Square development project.
However, after only paving about .7 miles of Crow Creek Road and building a small two-lane bridge over the creek, the project had already burned through the majority of its budget.
“That sucked up a lot of the money, so instead of being able to improve a bunch of the roads, they had to kind of limit their area,” said Jacques Boutet, President of the Boutet Company and the project manager hired by the Municipality of Anchorage to design Girdwood’s prospective downtown enhancements.
“They overran their budget by over a million dollars,” Boutet said. “In fact, I think it was closer to two million dollars. So of course, where do they get the money? They steal it from us.”
More money was funneled into the Crow Creek Road project, and Girdwood’s “economic development grant,” as it is often called, suddenly shrank from $4 million to a $2.5 million.
Boutet’s original plan for the town included the complete reconstruction of Lindblad Avenue, Girdwood Place, Hightower Road, and Holmgren Place. The roads would have new foundation materials, a proper drainage system, on-street parking, interior and exterior sidewalks, crosswalks, landscaping, and lights all the way around the square.
A new recreational area, Town Square Park, was also slated to be constructed in the center of the area enclosed by the four roads. It would feature a plaza, a few trails, and landscaping.
The project, in its entirety, has an estimated cost of completion between $3.5 and $4 million—clearly falling within the budget it had originally been allotted.
Now, with only $2.5 million dollars left, the project is at a crossroads: either scale back the design or find a way to raise more money.
“We’re taking a two-prong approach to dealing with this,” said Boutet. “We’re either going to reduce the size of the project by eliminating some of the work. For example, not doing the park or maybe not doing some of the roadways. Or we’re going to try to find a new source of money to essentially replenish the money that was taken by the DOT.”
Currently, Boutet is composing a revised package. Once completely re-designed, the plan will be taken to the Girdwood Board of Supervisors, who can either endorse it or suggest changes. But Boutet would rather see more money for the project.
“What we prefer to have happen is the opposite,” Boutet said, “which is that additional money is found and we figure out a way to have all this stuff and not have to cut things back. But that’s really going to rely on money coming from the state; there’s really no money in the city to do this, and there’s not enough funding capacity down in Girdwood itself to generate this kind of money.”
Boutet thinks that, logically, the additional revenue needed for the project should come from federal stimulus money, which recently has been pouring into Alaska. He has asked the DOT to consider using stimulus money to fund the development, but at this point they have refused.
“We would like to find a way to turn that decision around,” Boutet said.
The key to reversing that decision, he believes, is drumming up community support and awareness.
“The first step is education: letting people know this stuff might not happen,” said Boutet. “We’re rapidly approaching the point where the project is getting smaller and smaller and smaller because the money is just driveling away.”
If members of the Girdwood public want to see their downtown revamped and improved, Boutet urges them to make their opinions known to the DOT.
“There’s only so much we can do as the engineers,” he said. “We can advocate, but we’re not decision-makers. We’re just advocates.” |
