Anchorage Daily News
(Published: August 19, 2004)
A major developer has given the city of Anchorage 100 acres along Turnagain Arm, parcels that will become permanent parkland, the parties to the deal said Wednesday.
Most of the land sits along the coastal marsh and on a narrow bluff that sticks out like a thumb above the tidal flats. Land fill and dumping at the bluff over the years have added to the small peninsula. But it's now a grassy expanse that offers spectacular views, said an official of Carr-Gottstein Properties, the donor.
"It's drop-dead gorgeous," said Bob Mintz, a spokesman for the company. "It's ... southern exposure and a 180-degree view from the Chugach Mountains to Fire Island."
"This is not junk parkland," said Schawna Thoma, deputy director of the city's Office of Economic and Community Development. "It's really good-quality stuff."
About 70 acres, including the peninsula, lie on the shore side of Discovery Bay Drive in the Southport subdivision. The other 30 acres, on the inland side of the road, comprise several parcels interspersed throughout the neighborhood. They include a level, seeded field; a forest where "fabulous walking trails" will one day be developed, and several smaller chunks of land, Mintz said.
A deed to it all was given to Mayor Mark Begich at the site Wednesday afternoon by retired businessman Larry Carr, a founder of Carr-Gottstein Properties.
The land still must be officially dedicated as parkland and named, but approval by the Anchorage Assembly is expected, said Julie Hasquet, a spokeswoman for Begich. A half-dozen members of the Assembly attended Wednesday's ceremony, she said.
"We anticipate there won't be any problems," Hasquet said. "This is a gift to the city, a legacy. I don't know who would fight against it."
If the city does not dedicate the parcels as permanent parkland, Carr-Gottstein Properties will take them back, Hasquet said.
The name will be either Carr-Gottstein Park or Carr-Gottstein Coastal Park, according to Mintz.
Creating a public park in the area from donated open space has been on the company's drawing board for some time, Mintz said.
The 385-acre Southport was the city's first planned community, a model of how residential development should be done with a range of housing and parkland, he said.
The Southport master plan, written in 1984, called for park and open space, Hasquet said. The city's 1985 Parks Plan recommended that the lands be conveyed to the municipality as parkland, and the current draft update of that plan -- known as the Anchorage Bowl Parks, Natural Resource and Recreation Facilities Plan -- also recommends the conveyance, she said.
The peninsula on the bluff could not have been developed, Mintz said. But homes could have been built on the other open space. The company decided, however, to leave it open to increase the value of the subdivision, he said.
"We took the amount of housing that we could have developed on the whole property and we put that number of dwelling units on less (land) than the whole property and created the open spaces," Mintz said. "In that way we could have different density developments with interspersed open space instead of one homogenous type."
Homes in the area are diverse, ranging in price from a little less than $200,000 to more than $1 million, Mintz said. The open spaces, therefore, allow Carr-Gottstein to sell to different home-buyer markets.
The new park would give the public easy access to the city's south bluffs and views of the Anchorage Coastal Wildlife Refuge for the first time, said Maryellen Oman, president of Anchorage Audubon Society.
"I think it's a great thing," Oman said. "Hopefully the city can put (signs) out there to talk about the Coastal Refuge, and hopefully fit in with what they're trying to do with the (Tony Knowles) Coastal Trail."
The controversial proposal to extend the Coastal Trail from its terminus at Point Campbell to Potter Marsh would put the trail below the bluffs in one of the alternative routes. Mintz said that if the city were to build the trail along the coast, donation of the coastal property would make that process a little easier.
But others said it wouldn't matter much. Whether the land was made public park or not, the city still would have to acquire rights to other parts of the route that are private property.
"The issues are still there," said Bob Laule, a member of the Bayshore/Klatt Community Council who opposes the coastal route of the extension.
The issue of the trail's impact on the wildlife that uses the mud flats corridor remains.
Anchorage Audubon, like its statewide counterpart, is concerned about a trail's impact on the refuge, Oman said. Both organizations and others have sought to move the trail away from sensitive areas of the refuge.
Even so, Laule said, he was pleased the bluff had become a public park so that people would have a way to view the beauty of the area and cross-country ski to the flats.
"This gives you access without (impact) to the wildlife," Laule said.
A state biologist, however, said a park on the bluff could scare off some wildlife.
A pair of sandhill cranes that breeds in the spring near the bluff probably would abandon their nest as visitors frequented the site, said Rick Sinnott of the Department of Fish and Game.
"This will be the single biggest change in access since the refuge was created" decades ago, Sinnott said. "I suspect quite a few people will go there."
Daily News reporter Peter Porco can be reached at pporco@adn.com or 257-4582.
The Anchorage Daily News