Inside Alaska Business
CYBER Express Wash
The sudsy wave of new carwashes splashed ashore in Anchorage in June with the grand opening of CYBER Express Wash in the former Johnson’s Tire Service building in Midtown, making it the third-largest carwash facility in the country. CYBER Express Wash bills itself as Alaska’s first high-tech, hospitality-first express wash. Inside, customers experience a three-minute tunnel wash and ten-minute express detailing with no appointment needed. The company had begun staking out locations in Anchorage by 2023, when Chugach Alaska Corporation announced its investment. In addition to refurbishing the defunct Johnson’s Tire location on Denali Street, other “Coming Soon” signs are posted on East Fifth Avenue, where Sixth Avenue converges, and at the busy intersection of Lake Otis Parkway and Tudor Road.
Alaska Manufacturing Association
At the end of June, the Alaska Manufacturing Extension Partnership wrapped up its activities, and into that void stepped the Alaska Manufacturing Association. The new group aims to connect businesses with manufacturers and find solutions to common problems, such as cutting costs by combining shipments. Megan Militello, the association’s managing partner, used to own Anchorage-based granola company Elevated Oats and was a supply chain optimization manager for the manufacturing partnership. She says one of the association’s first initiatives is a business-to-business directory.
PanAlaska
The Arctic Light Modular Structural System is an insulated building panel that bolts together to make houses or commercial buildings. Inventor Glenn Brady was ramping up for production at his PanAlaska workshop in Fox, north of Fairbanks, for a $3 million contract to build thirty rural homes this summer. When the federal government paused the funding, Brady pivoted to military applications, such as using the insulation with airplanes. He hopes to keep PanAlaska solvent long enough to deploy the panels for homes.
Providence
A restructuring within the Providence healthcare network is expected to affect 600 full-time equivalent positions among its 125,000-person workforce, with 35 of those in Alaska. According to Providence, the affected Alaska positions are mostly leadership roles in non-clinical, administrative functions. Providence says it is responding to multiple pressures, including proposed Medicaid and Medicare cuts, ongoing denials and delayed payments from commercial insurers, higher labor costs in some West Coast states, and higher costs for pharmaceuticals and supplies due to inflation and tariffs.
Alaska State Fair
A new multipurpose event center is being completed just in time for the Alaska State Fair. The 8,300-square-foot structure near the Purple Gate entrance is designed for year-round community use to host indoor events, along with restrooms accessible from both inside and outside the building. Kuchar Construction, which built the new Sluicebox at the fairgrounds in 2023, is building the event center. Alaska State Fair is funding the project independently, thanks to generous and continued support from Alaskans.
STaX Capital Partners
An entrepreneur from Wasilla is proposing to monetize stranded North Slope natural gas as cryptocurrency. Sparrow Mahoney, chief executive of STaX Capital Partners, applied for a permit with state land managers to set up pods the size of shipping containers at a disused pad at Franklin Bluffs, about 30 miles south of Prudhoe Bay. Natural gas would power computers mining for Bitcoin. STaX’s gas generators would have the capacity to produce 50 MW, about the same as Alaska’s largest coal-fired power plant in Healy. Mahoney declined to reveal the exact cost but confirmed it would exceed $10 million. Last year, Hilcorp agreed to host a 1.4 MW cryptocurrency project using North Slope gas.
Aleut | Pacific H2
The Aleut Corporation is partnering with Pacific H2 to produce green ammonia from wind turbines on Adak Island. Aleut agreed to lease approximately 3,500 acres to Pacific H2 to install onshore wind turbines that would power ammonia production equipment on board a vessel permanently moored at the defunct US Navy pier. Work begins this summer on meteorological monitoring to gather data for appropriate turbine models. Construction would take approximately three years, with production and export to begin in the early 2030s. Pacific H2 anticipates monthly shipments to international customers of ammonia, mainly used as fertilizer but also combustible as fuel.
Northern Star Resources
A new calculation significantly increases the estimated gold reserves at the Pogo mine near Delta Junction. Northern Star Resources reports 9.13 tonnes of proven and probable reserves, up from 5.88 tonnes last year. However, the estimated grade of 7.2 grams per tonne, or 2.13 million ounces, is a lower concentration than previous reports. Northern Star expects current reserves to support six and a half years of continued operations at Pogo, at present milling rates.
Anchorage School District
Academies of Anchorage is revamped for the new school year. The Anchorage School District is dropping a requirement for students to declare a career path; instead, they are encouraged to take career-focused electives. The district says the mandatory Freshman Academy is being reshaped as a College and Career Exploration and Personal Finance course, counting toward an Alaska social studies credit. Program director Sean Prince attributes the changes to uncertainty about state and federal funding.