THREE SPENARD DUPLEXES

ANCHORAGE, ALASKA

Categories: Two Family, Anchorage, New Duplexes, Garage/Shop, Rental, Neighborhood Revitalization, Accessibility

Total area, buildings: 6,250 sq. ft. [new]

Total area, site: 21,300 sq. ft.

Owner/General Contractor: Cook Inlet Housing Authority

Around 20 years ago, housing authorities began to increase their influence and involvement in local and regional redevelopment initiatives, and expand their role — moving into education, the arts, community engagement and various other activities in addition to housing. In Southcentral Alaska, Cook Inlet Housing Authority has been busy for several years, focusing on various neighborhoods and completing a large volume of projects from single family dwellings and small apartment building remodels to large compounds with dozens of units — to senior housing and mixed use commercial/residential buildings. The last few years they have added a focus on the Spenard neighborhood, including a community campus surrounding their main offices, where they have completed a mixed use building on the site of a former strip club, redeveloped a former church into artists’ studios, a community gathering/performance hall and formed an on-site partnership with Anchorage Community House. Several additional facets of the Spenard engagement are under development.

FRamE is pleased to be playing a small role in the creation of new duplexes and small multiplex buildings with CIHA as part of the Spenard revitalization. The first project, three duplexes was designed in 2016-17 and constructed in 2017-18. Two of the building sites next to each other off the lower part of Spenard Rd. and the third site about a half mile away, a few blocks north and east of the corner of Tudor Rd. and Minnesota Dr.

The first project site is off the foot of Spenard Rd., a half block east of the main arterial. On the opposite side of Spenard Rd. is a large hotel [it’s changed names a few times since opening in the ‘80s, now known as The Lakefront]. In the ‘50s/’60s there was a small nightclub on the hotel site which by the mid-’70s became the first location of the Fly By Night Club, a notable longtime Spenard nightclub owned and managed by Mr. Whitekeys, who built a following as a showman, fronting recurring variety revues with local content/focus — as well as providing a venue for nationally known performers. In the late ‘70s Whitekeys also had a disco, The Flying Machine in an adjacent building. [After moving the Fly By Night Club up the road to 3300 Spenard Rd. for a few years, Whitekeys retired from the nightclub business but has continued to occasionally stage his revue at various other venues.] Also in the vicinity are a few other hotels; a Harley Davidson dealership; a large building supply with retail, contractor sales, a truss plant and millwork shop. And, miscellaneous strip retail/restaurants; freight yards and aviation support services. The railroad and Fish Creek run through the area. Lake Spenard and the cojoined Lake Hood together form a large seaplane base. The airport is a short distnace west of the lakes. There’s a large undeveloped tract with a lake that functions as a dog park. The headquarters building for the State Dept. of Transportation and Public Facilities [DOT/PF] is on the south shore of Lake Hood. There’s a small swimming beach on the north shore of Lake Spenard that’s also the historical site of Joe Spenard’s dance hall which he opened in 1917 — after putting in a rough trail from downtown Anchorage that’s approximately the same route as today’s Spenard Rd. The area has had persistent social problems for decades including drugs and prostitution. Change has been slow but heading in the right direction. One notable new business, The Writers’ Block Bookstore and Cafe, took the place of a triple X-rated book store/peep show.

In the middle of all of this madness is a network of interior streets [some gridded; some random and rambling] with most of the streetscapes still resembling their roots as urban outposts. Most of the houses are from the ‘60s and ‘70s, with a smattering of ‘40s and ‘50s log and frame houses extant [and a few others looking endangered]. The line between the commercial and residential uses along Spenard Rd. has eroded somewhat in recent years, after a mid-’80s road widening project and expansion of a few existing commercial sites. Behind the Lakefront Hotel and along the east shore of the lake, a stub street, Lake Spenard Dr. has an especially nice and well-maintained early ‘50s cabin [a former family home now owned by DOT/PF]. Next door to it is a house that was built in 1930 on 3rd Ave. and F St. and moved to Lake Spenard Dr. in the ‘60s and still has all its original features.

At the first location for the new duplexes, two streets intersect at an appoximate 45 degree angle creating a triangular lot. Next door, a 60 ft wide lot with angled short boundaries. Both lots have two street frontages. CIHA’s concept was that the duplex units would have their party walls in the middle of the lot and each unit would have its own street facing entrance [one on each street]. After consideration of larger unit versions, in the end it was decided the best use of the triangular lot would be a duplex with stacked one bedroom units, still with the dual street access; with the longer lot having larger two bedroom units including a single bay garage, in a single story building.

At the second location, a 50 foot wide infill lot in mid-block of an orthogonal street grid the dual access concept was repeated, with the back unit facing an alley.

FRamE’s design input at the early phases included collaborating with CIHA on the plan layouts, and then fine tuning them; and determination of volume and facade articulation. Our goal was for the future tenants to feel engaged with the surrounding houses, including an ability to observe/supervise but not to loom over the neighbors, and in a way that maintained privacy for all. Window sizing and placement was meticulously studied in order to enhance the tenants’ experience by flooding the interior with natural light, and increasing the field of view where most desirable and blocking certain views where helpful. Thus, there are bathrooms with narrow/high strip windows that view treetops and sky. In living areas, taller than normal windows that frame entire trees. In many of the bedrooms, one operable window or corner windows are next to a high strip window, increasing the daylight access and allowing more options for furniture placement. The high volume interior spaces created by the low pitch parallel chord trusses were not initially favored by CIHA [since development costs were increased, vs. space with a uniform 8 foot high ceiling] but mostly seems worth it, by making small-ish rooms feel light and airy.