Eye on Point Mac potential

POINT MACKENZIE — What happens to the trees and farms here if a Knik Arm bridge is built and suddenly Anchorage is just a few minutes away?

Development bonanza, right? A housing gold rush, with subdivisions everywhere!

Well, that’s the thinking of at least one Eagle River real estate agent who organized a catered event on a farm here Wednesday afternoon to talk about the area’s development potential.

“This parcel is just a jewel within the necklace of private ownership, which is a short necklace in Alaska,” said Bernie McClure of Partners Real Estate.

McClure is hoping to sell The Williams Farm in two 80-acre, $560,000 chunks and one $2.2 million, 320-acre chunk.

But, hold on. We’re talking about a Point MacKenzie farm here. Wasn’t this property sold as farmland and legally restricted from being developed as anything else?

“We have clear title that says agricultural,” McClure said. “In order to change that to something else it would have to go through the legislative process.”

She said she hopes someone sees the potential, though, and believes the state will eventually realize that in a state with just 1 percent of its land in private hands, passing legislation to ease agriculture requirements makes sense.

“We might want to let some houses be built, because we can sneeze on the prison,” she said, referring to the Goose Creek Correctional Center across the road from the farm where state is currently ramping up operations there, slowly bringing it online.

Representatives of the Knik Arm Bridge and Toll Authority attended McClure’s forum. They came armed with at least one chart and one map.

The chart tracks booming population numbers in Mat-Su. The map? Well, it shows just how much road a person wouldn’t have to drive on to get to Point Mac from Anchorage if there were a bridge.

Kevin Hemenway, Knik Arm Bridge and Toll Authority’s chief financial officer, joked that he could have used a bridge that afternoon. It would’ve saved him an hour. The bridge, he said, has been a dream for decades.

“The railroad was going to build a bridge across here in the ’20s. Well, they studied it at least,” he said.

He noted that currently the bridge would spit traffic out into a road system without great options for heading north to the state’s Interior. Burma Road requires expensive and extensive upgrades and Knik-Goose Bay Road is angled in the wrong direction and is already crowded.

But there’s a railroad going in from Point MacKenzie to Houston. A road alongside it would make a lot of sense, especially for a Knik Arm bridge, which is an idea Rep. Mark Neuman says he has his eye on.

“(The state Department of Transportation) has to do this part, though, unless the Legislature wants to expand our authority,” he said, pointing to railroad route.

Shannon McCarthy gave a quick update on the process to buy land for the bridge, saying that KABATA is close to complete on the Point MacKenzie side. It has bought two needed parcels and made an offer on the third and final one. Anchorage is more complicated, but even there KABATA has made lots of progress. It is currently working to relocate displaced businesses.

Contact reporter Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.