Design Beyond Borders: Alyeska Resort update

A resort set in the Chugach Mountains of Alaska is being transformed into a four-season destination. Skylab Architecture has designed a multiphase project for Alyeska Resort in Girdwood, approximately 40 miles southeast of Anchorage. Plans call for renovating existing facilities and building new ones.

The project’s owner/developer is Pomeroy Lodging , headquartered in Grande Prairie, Alberta, Canada. The project team also includes civil engineer Triad Engineering , headquartered in Scott Depot, West Virginia; structural engineer DCI Engineers of Portland; and landscape architect Confluence , headquartered in Des Moines, Iowa. The general contractor is a joint venture of Anchorage firms Ironwood General Contractors LLC and Watterson Construction Co.

Phase 1 of the project will produce Alyeska Village and Moose Meadows. Alyeska Village will include 325,000 square feet of new space, including an expansion of the hotel. A condominium building will have 78 units their owners, when not using the units, will be able to rent them out through the hotel. The village will also include a 12,000-square-foot conference center and an 8,000-square-foot base camp building that will house the resort’s ski school.

Moose Meadows will have 125,000 square feet of space, including a 20,000-square-foot building with small, workforce housing units. This portion of the development will also provide retail space, a day care facility, a community center with an outdoor, covered hockey rink, and a 20,000-square-foot recreation facility with a gym and an aquatics center.

The design concept for Phase 1 is a walkable village around the existing hotel, Skylab Architecture project architect Karl Gleason said. A central, outdoor pedestrian corridor will link the parking lot to the existing hotel, the tram base, and the ski mountain access. Along the pedestrian promenade, Phase 1 structures will include the condo building, the conference center, the base camp building, and the one-story hotel extension.

“The buildings along that promenade are located in such a way that they kind of frame different views,” Gleason said, citing the ski mountain, the nearby valley, and the area farther north of Girdwood.

Elevated walkways will be used to minimize the promenade’s impact on the land. The promenade also will provide a covered outdoor area via canopies attached to buildings.

Phase 1 structures that will be close to the hotel such as the condominium building, the base camp building, and the hotel extension will feature similar exterior materials (stone and concrete) on the exterior at ground level. On the upper levels, a mix of light and dark stained cedar on the exterior will invoke the layers of the forest, Gleason said. Larger glazed openings will be used on the condominium building’s residential units.

The other Phase 1 structures, including the workforce housing building, community center and day care facility, will have metal panels on the upper stories above smaller, lower concrete bases.

Sustainability and environmental stewardship are key components of the design. Mass timber will be used in lieu of steel and concrete where possible, including the condominium building with floors proposed to be made of cross-laminated timber (CLT). Glue-laminated (glulam) beams and engineered wood-plank decking are being used for exterior canopy structures and for the roofs of the base camp building (ski school), the hotel extension and the conference center.

“We’ve set out to make something that feels authentically Alaska and expresses a lot of natural material, particularly natural woods,” Gleason said.

The conference center will have a lodge-like feel with the use of wood. Condominium units will have exposed CLT ceilings, CLT floors and wood cabinetry.

The project includes four phases. The second and third phases will include additional condominium hotel buildings and workforce housing, Gleason said. The fourth and final phase will be a mix of single-family housing in a forested area to the north of the existing resort.

Construction of Phase 1 is expected to begin in spring 2025 and finish in fall 2027. Construction of future phases is expected to occur in two-year intervals with Phase 2 beginning in 2027, Phase 3 in 2029, and Phase 4 in 2031. Full project completion is anticipated in 2033.

Design Beyond Borders is a DJC feature offering a look at the projects outside of Oregon and Southwest Washington being tackled by local architecture firms. To have your firm’s projects considered, email the DJC news staff atnewsroom@djcOregon.com.

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