City Hall Sets Example for Anchorage Real Estate Resurgence

The transaction was one of the major deals highlighted at a forecast luncheon last week for the Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA) of Anchorage. Erik Frampton with the property management firm Frampton and Opinsky noted another 2025 purchase, kitty-corner from City Hall: the high-rise Westmark Hotel is under new ownership and slated for remodeling this year.

A couple of Aspen Suites Hotels in Midtown are now part of Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium’s patient lodging portfolio. The properties—one at Old Seward Highway and 34th Avenue and the other along Tudor Road near the C Street “Hotel Row”—expand patient lodging by 225 rooms. JL Hospitality Management acquired the broader Aspen Suites Hotels of Alaska portfolio (including locations in Haines, Homer, Kenai, Juneau, Sitka, Soldotna) last March.

Furthermore, Hotel Row will soon extend into the wedge of land where the A-C Couplet diverges near 36th Avenue. The lot has been vacant since the ‘80s, when plans for a twin tower alongside the Frontier Building fizzled amid that decade’s financial crisis. But Frampton reports that the property is slated to become a Marriott-branded hotel, courtesy of Peachtree Group. Which, he notes, is not to be confused with Peach Holdings, the company proceeding with its Block 41 development in Downtown Anchorage by erecting a new parking structure to serve the planned mixed-use complex on the site.

Frampton notes that listings for office properties were flat in 2025, but industrial listings more than doubled, from 13 to 27. That figure is based on the relatively small number of industrial properties available, with 527 in the municipality, but Frampton observes that they spent significantly fewer days on the market.

More residential properties are on the way, says Graham Downey, the mayor’s deputy chief of staff. He reports more than 400 permits for new dwelling units in 2025, up from fewer than 300 permitted in 2024. The value of permits in 2025 totaled $646 million, the most in several years, he adds.

One major development would be in Girdwood: the long-awaited Holtan Hills project. The city transferred land in 2024 to Connie Yoshimura’s CY Investments, and the project is on track for Phase 1, which includes thirty-nine sites for single-family homes, duplexes, triplexes, and accessory dwelling units.

Leah Boltz, principal at Bettisworth North Architects & Planners, told the BOMA luncheon about other forthcoming projects, such as Raspberry Townhomes in South Anchorage, scheduled for 2027, would be Debenham Properties’ follow-up to the 2024 opening of Block 96 Flats, a market-rate apartment building in Downtown. South Anchorage would also see a new senior living complex at a long-vacant lot where Lake Otis Parkway intersects O’Malley Road, according to Boltz.

400 Down, 9,600 to Go

Downey says the mayor’s office is hoping to see more than 500 permitted dwelling units in 2026, building toward the goal set last year of adding 10,000 new homes in Anchorage within ten years.

To accomplish that goal, the LaFrance administration laid out sixteen policy objectives, and Downey says ten of them are already complete. “This is way more progress than we were expecting. We are ahead of schedule, at least in terms of policy changes,” he told the BOMA luncheon.

Those policies include an incentive for multifamily construction, with up to twenty-eight years of property tax abatement on the full value of the property. The city also paused aesthetic standards required for multifamily buildings, and Downey says that suspension could become permanent. Another incentive is meant to make repairs to aging homes more affordable, and the city created a new category of “relocatables” to diversify options for trailer parks.

The city is also offering significant fee discounts for rezoning that aligns with the comprehensive plan, lowering costs from as high as $30,000 to a mere $200. In a designated town center, Downey says, “You might be eligible to upzone your property into something like a B-3 zone, which would provide considerable flexibility for you to do mixed-use.”

Downey recalled the BOMA luncheon a year ago when the 10,000-home goal was met with skepticism. “Thankfully, you were wrong, and I was right,” he said amid warm laughter, “at least partially. We’ve been able to make some substantial progress this year, but there’s a lot more to do.”