Anchorage Daily News

Cook Inlet Region Inc. plans to build a 95-acre shopping and entertainment center in Muldoon next spring.

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The Anchorage-based Native regional corporation, with a California developer, will construct a $100 million complex featuring national and local retailers, restaurants, movie theaters and outdoor entertainment. There may be a hotel and ice skating rink on the property as well, said Greg Jones, CIRI vice president of business development.

It will be the highest quality shopping and entertainment venue in Alaska, said Jim Jager, CIRI spokesman.

"It will not be a strip mall," Jager said. "It will not be a big box center."

The shopping center will feature clusters of stores, eateries and other venues connected by pedestrian walkways that will likely be heated and covered, Jones said. It will sit on CIRI land next to Bartlett High School and close to the Alaska Native Heritage Center at the intersection of Muldoon Road and the Glenn Highway.

CIRI and partner Browman Development Co. of Oakland, Calif., will need zoning changes and plan approval from local, state and federal regulators, Jager said. They don't expect any significant hurdles.

Groundbreaking is planned for next spring. Opening is targeted for summer 2008.

As part of the deal, CIRI is putting up the land and Browman will be the managing partner. Jones would not reveal how much cash, if any, CIRI is investing in the project. But he said any CIRI shareholder is welcome to call him to find out. Details will be disclosed in the company's next annual report, Jones said.

CIRI's RV park, which covers about one-third of the 95-acre tract, will close after this tourist season, Jager said.

Neither would say which national stores they are hoping to entice. But Target, a national one-stop-shopping retailer, is among them, Jones offered.

"We would obviously love to have Target," he said.

The CIRI mall would be up the road from another retail center being built in Mountain View, also along the Glenn Highway. A $40 million project, called Glenn Square, is under development on a 25-acre lot between Mountain View Drive and the Glenn Highway across from the Northway Mall.

Its anchor stores will include Best Buy, Old Navy, Petco, Famous Footwear and Michaels arts and crafts store.

Commercial real estate broker and developer Bruce Burnett described the CIRI shopping center as overkill for a city that's full of strip malls, big box stores and other retail hubs. Anchorage has three times as much retail per capita as other cities its size, Burnett said.

He also said the Muldoon location for a high-end shopping center seems out of place.

"Your demographic there is military and low-income," he said.

The new mall will mark CIRI's first investment in retail. The company makes money from oil-field services, construction, real estate, telecom, resorts and government contracting.

Because CIRI is new to the retail sector, it brought in "expert partners," Jager said.

"We've analyzed the market and we're confident we can build a profitable shopping and entertainment center," he said.

Daily News reporter Paula Dobbyn can be reached at pdobbyn@adn.com or 257-4317.