Mountain View flirts with very bright future

The ultimate goal is to create a large-scale multi-disciplinary art center in Mountain View, said Bruce Farnsworth, a writer and coordinator of the MTS Gallery. The gallery is located downstairs in the building also housing offices of the Anchorage Community Land Trust.

"We just finished putting together a package of materials that include our design drawings that were made for us by RIM Architects," Farnsworth said in a telephone interview. "We pulled together a whole development team with the help of the Rasmuson Foundation, including JL Properties, RIM Architects and Davis Constructors."

Farnsworth's group has also just completed a five-year sustainability model which, based on all of their research and calculations, estimates the art center would start out with a deficit, but by the fifth year would be in the black.

The effort to give Mountain View a new image comes at a time when the neighborhood appears to be experiencing a dramatic drop in serious crime.

Preliminary 2008 statistics from the Anchorage Police Department for Mountain View show a total of 656 incidents of homicide, rape, assault, robbery, burglary, theft and stolen vehicles. That's down from 825 similar incidents in 2007 and 863 in 2006.

There were 854 such events in 2005 and 805 in 2004.

Anchorage Police Chief Rob Heun credits the drop in crime to much improved communications between his department and the community.

"If people live in a community where police are responsive, they will report more crime," said Heun.

In Mountain View, Heun chalks it up to community involvement, an increased police presence and zero tolerance for crime. Anyone breaking the law in any way, including jaywalking, gets confronted, he said. While the confrontation with police might result only in a warning, it also gives officers a chance to get to know the people. A special assignments unit and school resource officers also have helped, he said.

"What we are seeing up there is everything coming together," Heun said. "We're not declaring victory, but we are moving in the right direction."

LAND TRUST HAS SOLID SUPPORT

Leaders of the Mountain View Community Council say they are excited about other plans in the works to revitalize the neighborhood.

"We have a lot going on and there is a feeling of neighborliness, and I think it's because a lot of people walk on the streets," said Don Crandall, president of the community council.

"One of the encouraging signs is a lot of families pushing strollers. And we've had some of the finest builders in the city building new houses. The housing stock has much improved because of that, and it is attracting a lot of young families."

Farnsworth's group, Trailer Art Center, is partnering with the Anchorage Community Land Trust in its effort to do for Mountain View what revitalizing Soho did for New York City: turn a downtrodden neighborhood into a thriving arts district.

"We provide programming of an arts and culture nature in their facility and their mission is to provide the creation of arts and culture, so you see we are a natural symbiotic coupling," he said.

Land Trust Executive Director Jewel Jones, Crandall and Glenn Howson, who is vice president of the community council, share Farnsworth's enthusiasm.

"The streets look better and Mountain View looks nicer," said Howson, who rides his bike down Mountain View streets to work in warmer weather, and speaks of the economic bustle expected to come from a new mall and 12-plex movie theater adjacent to the mall.

Credit Union 1 has plans for a Mountain View branch that will include a community room to be shared at no cost with Mountain View civic groups and an Anchorage Police Department substation.

"A full-service banking institution in Mountain View is essential to the continued revitalization of the neighborhood," Jones said. "Credit Union 1 will be a powerful and practical symbol of hope and renewal for the residents of Mountain View and a signal to the rest of the Anchorage business community that there is untapped economic potential in Mountain View. It will be the first financial institution in the neighborhood in over 20 years."

There have also been government-bonded road projects, a new Clark Middle School is under construction and there is a commitment from the Municipality of Anchorage to reopen the Mountain View branch library, Farnsworth said.

The land trust, armed with $5 million in seed money from the Rasmuson Foundation, also has received support from state and federal agencies, BP, Conoco Phillips, the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the Ford Foundation and Chevron in its effort to stabilize the area.

A hybrid organization, the land trust acts both as a community development organization and a land trust, acquiring properties to hold and develop along the lines of new arts-related businesses.

Jones acknowledges that there is a lot to do, but points to projects like the MTS Gallery and Mountain View Diner as examples of the turning point.

"They bake some of the best pies and cookies in Anchorage," said Jones, munching a cookie on a recent trip to the diner, now operated by the Cook Inlet Tribal Council as part of a program to bring substance abusers back into society.

Across the street is the old Sadlers warehouse, now housing tenants that include Campfire USA, the Foraker Group and Catholic Social Services.

BE DRAMATIC -- LOOK TO THE FUTURE

In 1967, the Mountain View area was a congenial, low-income starter neighborhood, Jones said. Then came construction of the trans-Alaska oil pipeline, and Mountain View became a transitional neighborhood full of new multi-plexes replacing single family homes.

"People didn't develop roots," she said. "They were just here until they could move on to the next place."

Popular mainstay businesses, which closed with the passing of their owners, included Castleton's custom photo processing shop and Brewsters clothing store.

As the revitalization effort began to take root several years ago, an enterprising couple, Rob and Carolyn Kineen, started Nobel's Diner, serving up fare that won rave reviews. The diner couldn't make it, however.

Crandall, like Farnsworth, spoke of Nobel's as an enterprise that just arrived too early on the scene, and said they were sad to see it close.

"Nobel's was a start-up business by two young people and they actually moved into the neighborhood because of the revitalization. It just didn't work out. They were there too soon," said Crandall, who now enjoys the pastries and homemade soups turned out by the new diner owners.

Crandall also sees bonuses in other government efforts, including the Glenn/Bragaw overpass and a lighted pedestrian underpass with a bike path.

"The overpass changes your perspective of Mountain View because it's kind of an uplifting, inspiring experience," he said. "You see the mountains to the east and to the west the downtown skyline, and when you look forward you see the new school on one side, and broad sidewalks on both sides."

Crandall also speaks with pride of the ethnic diversity of the neighborhood, which includes a Laotian-Thai video store, and a Vietnamese restaurant that also serves Polynesian food.

"I think we are the most diverse community in Anchorage," he said. "It's about 36 percent European ancestry, about 10 percent African-American, 17 to 20 percent Alaska Native and a large percentage of Asian-Pacific Islanders. You can tell the diversity just by the churches: three Samoan, a Methodist Congregational, Assembly of God, a Korean church, at least two predominantly African-American churches and one Buddhist temple. I think we get along pretty well. It's always been a very friendly community."

The only downside to the revitalization effort, according to Farnsworth, is it needs to be better coordinated.

"We don't have any people with the kind of urban development experience to know what to do," he said. "Mountain View suffers from a lack of a diversified economic base. Having an art center there can be a leading wedge to help foster that type of investment. JL Properties was the first private developer to say this would be good for the community. They helped us locate and analyze various sites for the art center, and Rim Architects turned over a couple of young architects to design the building."

Plans are to get investors lined up to help fund the project and get a long-term lease on a building that would be owned initially by the land trust.

Money to build it would come from private philanthropic organizations. Farnsworth said his group also has a request in for a capital project investment with the state and will apply for some federal economic development grant funds.

Meanwhile, Farnsworth is concentrating on getting the proposed two-story, 30,000-square foot, multidisciplinary art center to the construction phase, hopefully with a significant commitment from the Rasmuson Foundation board, which meets this month.

"That would be our ideal scenario, and others would then hopefully follow suit," said Farnsworth. "If fundraising efforts started quickly, we could consider groundbreaking next fall with the possibility of opening 18 months later.

"I believe if we really are serious about trying to revitalize a neighborhood like Mountain View, we have to do something on this scale," he said. "You can't just tinker around the edges. To really signal to investors that it is OK to come in, you have to do something fairly dramatic."