Merrill Field airport is eyeing development of a portion of green space that sits across the street from one of its well-used runways, and some in the community worry that potential new office buildings will jeopardize the character of the neighborhood and threaten an area park.
The Anchorage airport owns land along 15th Avenue between Orca and Sitka Street, and it hopes to develop the eastern side of the property while moving Sitka Street Park, an existing community public-use area, to the west.
Allen Kemplen, who sits on the executive board of the Fairview Community Council, said Wednesday that the plan is a "significant change in the character and intensity of land use" in the area. The Fairview Community Council opposes the land's development.
Sitka Street Park, as it is identified on Google Maps, is home to a small playground, a sledding hill and a covered picnic area. To the west of the park is an undeveloped plot which connects to 15th Avenue via a paved pathway. To the South, the airport land connects with Chester Creek Green Belt Park.
"Kids from Fairview Elementary School will walk down to that site to take advantage of the facilities," Kemplen said. "It's within convenient walking distance for winter recreation."
The eastern portion of land will likely be developed into medical office buildings, extending the commercial offices clustered around the nearby Alaska Regional Hospital, airport manager Paul Bowers said Wednesday.
But the park won't disappear -- it will be moved to the western side of the property, according to Bowers. Merrill Field airport won't develop that land without creating a "comparable" space for public use, Bowers said.
Bowers said that the area is airport-owned, public-use land, and not a designated park.
When asked why the airport is looking to develop the land now, Bowers said it is part of the facility's 20-year Master Plan, which Merrill Field is updating for the first time since 2001.
As part of the public process, the FAA has weighed in on the plan, Bowers said. The agency has revenue requirements that are attached to federal grants received by the airport and the FAA has "advocated" for the airport to receive "fair-market value" on properties it has available for lease, Bowers said. Right now, one of those areas is used as a dumping ground for snow, he said.
"If that's all you're ever going to do with it, then you're hard pressed" to prove you've gotten fair market value, Bowers said.
The offices would be a long-term lease, akin to other businesses that lease land on Merrill Field's property.
In October, the Fairview Community Council unanimously passed a resolution opposing development of the space, citing an already "inadequate amount of green space and public parks to serve the population density of the Fairview Community."
The development "represents, I think, significant negative impacts both to the adjacent neighborhood but also in terms of the wetlands and the green space, and the quality of life currently enjoyed," Kemplen said.
Additionally, if the public use area is moved to the west, homeowners who now sit on the edge of undeveloped land will have "an active open space behind them," Kemplen said. That could both increase traffic and potentially lower the value for the homeowner.
"It's certainly premature for such a concept to be introduced into the airport master plan until these issues and concerns are adequately addressed," Kemplen said.
Bowers said a definitive plan is not in place for the land, but "it's likely" development will happen.
Any timeline for development is unclear, since it would require coordinating changes to traffic and transportation, among many other considerations.
"This is the first step in a long process," Bowers said.
"No matter what gets done … it will be communicated at length" with the community, Bowers said.