OPINION: Project Anchorage will rejuvenate our city

I support the Project Anchorage proposal.

I have lived and worked in Anchorage since arriving in 1977 for a one-year commitment with a local Anchorage architect. I quickly got involved in the architectural community here and decided to extend my stay for another year. Then I met the woman of my dreams, Barbara, now my wife of 45 years, and the rest is history. We both became deeply involved in this community through our careers, individually and as a team — she as founder and business owner of a commercial interior design practice (now SALT) and me as a business owner of the firm that I founded in 1986, RIM Architects (now RIM, a GHD company). Our children were born and raised here, and we became more engaged in the community by volunteering with and donating to several community organizations. We saw and believed in Anchorage’s potential as a distinctive, unique U.S. city of choice and opportunity, and got involved to help to make our dreams of Anchorage become reality. And we did see Anchorage make significant positive progress toward its potential during the 1980s, ‘90s and early 2000s.

Sadly, in recent years, due to a variety of negative factors, we have observed Anchorage go into an extended, heartbreaking decline. Everyone I talk to agrees that it is time for a turnaround for Anchorage. We are at an “it’s now or never” tipping point. The time has come for us as a community to take action, stop the decline and invest in ourselves to start our economic recovery.

That is why I am supporting Project Anchorage, which will dedicate funding to quality-of-life capital investments and property tax relief. This will be accomplished with a temporary, modest 3% sales tax that can only be spent on two things: specific voter-approved capital investments and reduction of property taxes for all municipal taxpayers. No bonding debt will be required, and projects built with this revenue must be at least 80% funded before breaking ground.

Project Anchorage is about investing in how we want our community to look in 10, 20, even 30 years. The business community is involved in putting together a smart, balanced proposal that will revitalize our city. We must build on this momentum, based on paying for meaningful projects in our community, projects that will initiate a return of confidence and pride in our city.

We can’t keep doing the same thing as we always have and expect results to improve. We can’t realistically expect another large windfall of oil money to come our way as happened in the early ‘80s, resulting in “Project ‘80s.”

The Project Anchorage initiative will also serve to stimulate private-sector development that will complement and enhance projects funded by Project Anchorage. People want places to recreate in all four seasons — a safe and welcoming downtown with housing, shopping and entertainment, and places to gather with friends and neighbors, whatever the weather outside. We are a winter city. Let’s celebrate that and make the most of it, becoming the best winter city in America!

It’s time now for us to stand on our own and diversify our municipal revenue base to pay for things we know Anchorage residents want: measurable quality-of-life improvements.

I urge Assembly members to look toward the future, seize the moment and give voters a chance to improve our community in April through Project Anchorage.

Larry Cash is a longtime Alaskan and Anchorage-based architect who founded local firm RIM Architects in 1986.

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