Downtown Anchorage is a neighborhood in the U.S. city of Anchorage, Alaska. Considered the central business district of Anchorage, Downtown has many office buildings, cultural points of interest, shopping areas, as well as dining and nightlife attractions. Today's Downtown was the original site of the Anchorage Land Auction in 1915, which gave rise to today's present-day grid street pattern. The actual original townsite was a tent city located off the banks of Ship Creek, at present-day Government Hill.
Downtown is a major employment center for the greater Anchorage region, drawing commuters from as far away as the Matanuska-Susitna Borough. The largest industries were services, government, and retail. [1]
Downtown's architecture substantially defines the Anchorage skyline today. The tallest buildings in Alaska are located here, most notably the ConocoPhillips Building and the Atwood Building.
Downtown Anchorage's cleanliness, safety, and vitality is strongly controlled and advocated by the Anchorage Downtown Partnership.
Houston is a city in Matanuska-Susitna Borough, Alaska, United States. It is part of the Anchorage, Alaska Metropolitan Statistical Area. It is located roughly 33 miles from downtown Anchorage, although it is a 58-mile drive by car between the two points. The population was 1,975 at the 2020 census, up from 1,912 in 2000.
Palmer is a city in and the borough seat of the Matanuska-Susitna Borough, Alaska, United States, located 42 miles (68 km) northeast of Anchorage on the Glenn Highway in the Matanuska Valley. It is the ninth-largest city in Alaska, and forms part of the Anchorage Metropolitan Statistical Area. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city is 5,888, down from 5,937 in 2010.
Spenard is a neighborhood in the Municipality of Anchorage, Alaska, United States and was historically a separate city from Anchorage. Spenard maintains the flavor of a separate community today, with "Spenardi Gras" being its primary community celebration that encourages a sense of solidarity and separation from the rest of Anchorage. Spenard is a central focus of bohemian lifestyle practitioners and artists and writers, and is well known for its numerous poetry jams, bicycle parties, and other similar events.
The George M. Sullivan Arena is a 6,290 seat arena in Anchorage, Alaska, United States. The arena is named after former Anchorage mayor George M. Sullivan. It is owned by the Municipality of Anchorage and operated by ASM Global, a nationwide property management company. The Sullivan Arena sits in the southwest region of Fairview, a neighborhood in Anchorage. The arena opened in 1983 and sits just east of Mulcahy Stadium as part of the Chester Creek Sports Complex. Sullivan Arena hosted the 1989 World Junior Ice Hockey Championships along with the Harry J. McDonald Memorial Center in Eagle River.
The Knik Arm Bridge is a dormant proposal for a 1.74-mile (2.80 km) bridge across Cook Inlet's Knik Arm to link the two fastest growing parts of Alaska – Anchorage and the Matanuska-Susitna Borough.
The Alaska Center for the Performing Arts is a performance venue in downtown Anchorage, Alaska. Opened in 1988, it hosts over 200,000 patrons annually, and consists of three theaters:
The William A. Egan Civic and Convention Center is a 45,000-square-foot (4,200 m2) convention center located in downtown Anchorage, Alaska at 555 West Fifth Avenue. Constructed in 1984 as part of a massive Anchorage-wide public works project dubbed "Project 80s", it replaced the original Z. J. Loussac Library, which opened on the same site in 1955 and was demolished in 1981. The library moved to a new building in midtown Anchorage, also as part of Project 80s. The building is named for Alaska's first governor, William Allen Egan. It features a unique glass front that runs the entire length of the facility providing the reception area and the giant Ficus retusa trees inside with plenty of natural light. A skywalk across Fifth Avenue connects the building to the Alaska Center for the Performing Arts.
KXLW is a commercial country music radio station in Houston, Alaska, broadcasting to the Anchorage, Alaska area on 96.3 FM. It is owned by Ohana Media. Its studios are located in Downtown Anchorage and its transmitter is in Eagle River, Alaska.
KBRJ is a commercial country music radio station in Anchorage, Alaska, broadcasting on 104.1 FM. Owned by Alpha Media LLC, its studios are located in Anchorage, and its transmitter is in the Bayshore neighborhood in South Anchorage.
KASH-FM is a commercial country music radio station in Anchorage, Alaska. It is owned by iHeartMedia, Inc. Its studios are located at Dimond Center in Anchorage, and its transmitter is located in Eagle River, Alaska.
KHAR is a commercial sports radio station in Anchorage, Alaska, United States. It features programming from the CBS Sports Radio network. Owned by Alpha Media, its studios are located in Anchorage, and its transmitter is in the Bayshore neighborhood in South Anchorage.
Ben Boeke Ice Rink is an ice hockey arena that opened in 1974. It is named after former Anchorage city clerk Benjamin W. Boeke, who served from 1947 to 1967, under 11 mayors and 8 city managers. The arena is owned by the Municipality of Anchorage and operated by ASM Global, a nationwide property management company.
Government Hill is a neighborhood in the northwest part of Anchorage, Alaska, sitting in between Anchorage's downtown area and the western reaches of Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, specifically the portion formerly known as Elmendorf Air Force Base. The neighborhood is named for the "hill" it sits on of about 115 feet (35 m) bearing the same name, which is actually a bluff which rises alongside the northern banks of Ship Creek. The origins of the name date to 1915, when a federal land reserve was created in the area for the Alaska Engineering Commission, then heavily involved in constructing the Alaska Railroad nearby.
The Anchorage Police Department (APD) is the police department of the Municipality of Anchorage in Alaska. Functioning as a service area of the Municipality, its patrol area includes the core "Anchorage bowl", the Seward Highway corridor from Potter Creek south to McHugh Creek, and the Glenn Highway corridor north of the Anchorage bowl to the municipality's border with the Matanuska-Susitna Borough, including the communities of Eagle River, Chugiak and Eklutna. Through a memorandum of understanding, APD also handles calls on Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson which involve civilian suspects or victims. Serving Alaska's largest city, APD is also the only metropolitan agency and the largest municipal police force in Alaska.
The Linny Pacillo Parking Garage is a 10-story parking garage in downtown Anchorage, Alaska, United States. The upper nine stories are for parking, with the first story serving as retail space. The structure contains a total of 368,830 square feet (34,265 m2), including the retail space. Owned by the state government of Alaska, it provides 844 parking spaces for state employees, plus 40 spaces for visitors. The garage sits across from and services the Robert B. Atwood Building. The garage was built to replace parking spaces in downtown which were displaced by the construction of the Dena'ina Civic and Convention Center. The garage was designed by architects Koonce Pfeffer Bettis Inc. Construction of the garage began on February 1, 2007, and it opened on September 8, 2008. Tenants on the first floor are Northrim Bank, who have been inaugural tenants of the facility, and the Alaska Division of Motor Vehicles, who opened their downtown Anchorage office in the facility on November 9, 2010.
The J. C. Penney Store in Anchorage, Alaska is a department store and part of the United States retail chain J. C. Penney. The store was established in 1962 on Fifth Avenue in downtown Anchorage, making J. C. Penney one of the first national retailers to establish a presence in the state following Alaska's admission to the union as the 49th state in 1959. The store has been housed in two buildings on the same Fifth Avenue site since it opened.
Tikahtnu Commons is a 900,000 square foot power center located on a 95-acre parcel in Anchorage, Alaska, United States. It is owned by Cook Inlet Region, Inc. (CIRI), an Alaska Native corporation and Browman Development Company, a California corporation. The shopping center consists of several large anchor stores, dozens of smaller restaurants, shops and services, and a 16-screen Regal Cinemas theater. Tikahtnu is the word for Cook Inlet in the Dena'ina language. Tikahtnu Commons is home to many firsts for Alaska, including the state's first Kohl's, PetSmart and IMAX theater. Tikahtnu Commons is the largest single-owner shopping center in the state and is even large by national comparison. The International Council of Shopping Centers states that power centers in the United States typically range from 250,000 to 600,000 square feet with an average of 420,160 square feet (39,034 m2). Construction of the center began in 2007 and by the summer of 2015, it had been developed to roughly 98% capacity.
Chacon is a 72 ft (22 m) dry docked wooden vessel and roadside curiosity in Chugiak, Alaska, United States. The former fishing vessel currently serves as a memorial for its most recent owner, Thillman Wallace of Chugiak.
Mountain View is a neighborhood in northeast Anchorage, Alaska, with approximately 7,300 residents. Mountain View is the most diverse neighborhood in the United States. It is between the Glenn Highway and Elmendorf Air Force Base, west of McCarrey Street and east of Post Road. It is a working-class neighborhood, with a median household income of approximately $51,000 and a poverty rate of approximately 26%.
Fairview is a neighborhood in Anchorage, Alaska just east of Downtown Anchorage and west of the Merrill Field Airport. The area is a working-class neighborhood of approximately 7,200 residents, with a median household income of approximately $55,000 and a poverty rate of approximately 21%.
Coordinates: 61°13′07″N149°53′29″W / 61.21861°N 149.89139°W