This column was originally published on May 21, 2009
I can't help getting attached to Spenard Road , the dog-eared artery that runs through the center of my commercial universe. Maybe it's the growing new-school culture, the winter bikers and crafters and pastry chefs, second-run movie watchers and yoga practitioners and comic book readers. Or maybe it's the history with the flat-roofed buildings and the old pawn shops. Maybe it's just the smell of fresh baked Wonder Bread from the old Sunrise Bakery.
To me, Spenard is more than a place, it's a motto for the people who live and shop there. It's authentic. Gritty. It's the only street name in town that seems appropriate on a T-shirt.
For all those reasons, I've been keeping track of the progress of the street improvement project for the 10 city blocks of road from Hillcrest Drive, around the bakery, to a couple blocks south of REI The latest version of the plan, which was supposed to make the street safer and more efficient for people to drive, bike and walk, would have created a dramatic face lift, shrinking the four-lanes to three, adding wider sidewalks, bike lanes and landscaping.
And I was all for it. The road could clearly use some decent sidewalks. And it would be nice if people could ride their bikes to the Bear Tooth for a burrito without risking their lives either riding on the skinny sidewalk, where cars are always backing out, or riding on the street, which has no bike lanes. The new plan would make it a real town center, a destination where you could walk around, just like downtown.
But some business owners didn't feel that way. In fact, they were so opposed, the Assembly tabled it. And there's no telling when it will get funding to move forward.
That might not be a huge deal, except engineers have been trying to come up with a plan for the road , from Chester Creek to Minnesota Drive, for 10 years and they've spent around $1 million in public money doing it. Now, the only a small stretch from Hillcrest to Chester Creek, is getting an upgrade. The rest was split into sections, and my 10 blocks, the part that's seen the most commercial growth the past few years, are on indefinite hold. That seems like a waste.
Walking down Spenard Road the other afternoon, I looked at the businesses with the "Save Our Road " signs in their windows and thought, "Your road ? What about my road ?" What about all the people who want to come here on foot or by bike? What's the beef with sidewalks?
So, I decided I'd ask some questions to find out.
First I called up Lottie Michael, who has been outspoken against upgrades. A couple years ago, she remade a derelict old building into the hipster outpost that now houses Sugarspoon bakery and Bella Boutique. She invited me over.
The city plan kept morphing, so it was hard to keep up, she told me as we looked at a set of plans rolled out on her kitchen counter. Parking in front of businesses would go away, replaced by sidewalks and fewer parallel street parking spots. She might be able to deal with that, but there would be new traffic patterns, making it hard to turn into some establishments. There were also weird decorative walls, nearly as tall as she was, that she believed would block her storefronts. And the construction was going to keep customers away from the businesses in her building, which could shut them down.
I could see some of her points. Was it a good idea to starve the businesses in Spenard to improve the road ? Probably not. Why would people walk there if the businesses were gone? And what was with the walls? There had to be a compromise.
The next day I went over to talk to the people who designed the road , John Smith and Jennifer Noffke, who both work for the city, and David Krehmeier, who works for the firm Lounsbury and Associates.
They looked weary in their little muni conference room. They'd fixed some of the traffic patterns business owners were worried about and were close to dealing with many of the parking issues, they said. And the walls in front of Michael's business weren't as tall as she thought.
I looked at the plan and what I saw seemed reasonable, but I had no idea if I was looking at the version the business owners had seen. It seemed that many of them had given up communicating with the city a while ago. From their standpoint, it seemed the unhappy owners were just afraid of change.
I took another drive down the road . I noticed that Paul Denkewalter, who owns Alaska Mountaineering and Hiking, had taken his "Save Our Road " sign down out of his window. He told me he'd been against the changes at first, but, like a lot of the business people I talked to, he didn't really have good information. He had a good conversation with the city and worked some things out. Now he thinks the upgrades are a good idea, even if they would cost a little business.
He's been on Spenard for more than 30 years and saw it in the days before sidewalks. The street is going to change, he said, and it seems best to be part of it rather than trying to work against it.
"Trying to ossify an area is a bad idea. It has to be constantly changing. It's like a living organism."
Next I tried Baxter Gamble. He owns The Printer print shop, with a "If it's not broke, why waste $22 million fixing Spenard " sign in his window. He explained that he didn't trust the city's reasoning for upgrading the road , and that the plan kept changing. Pretty soon he decided I was asking too many questions and said, "I'm not going to get in a contest with you," and hung up.
Listening to the dial tone at my desk, I wondered how Gamble and Michael had gotten so crosswise with the city. Being afraid of change might be one of the issues, but so was trust. Somewhere in those 10 expensive years, the process broke down, and now they didn't trust the city to give them good information or make smart changes. And the city's weary of trying. And so Spenard Road stays the same when it could be made better.
As far as I can tell, that means everybody loses out.