World Trade Center Anchorage has promoted overseas commerce for, effectively, the entire state, so the nonprofit is leaning into that larger identity with a new name. President and CEO Greg Wolf announced a rebranding in November, becoming the Alaska International Business Center, styled akIBC. Wolf says the name “is a better representation of our statewide membership and operations.”
To describe the full range of outdoor living and recreation products it makes, Airframes Alaska changed its name to Alaska Gear Company. Airframes Alaska started as a licensed maker of Super Cub fuselages at Birchwood Airport. The company acquired the Reeve Air Motive parts dealer at Merrill Field, and other acquisitions brought Alaska Tent & Tarp and Northern Sled Works under the same roof. “Our new brand gives us a chance to build an even bigger Alaskan manufacturing company,” says CEO and majority owner Sean McLaughlin.
Wasilla is securing its position as the beachhead for national franchises entering the Alaska market. The latest arrival is Blaze Fast-Fire’d Pizza, which opened its first restaurant in the state in November near The Home Depot store. The pizzeria is next door to Firehouse Subs, owned by the same franchise partners, Greg Persinger and Catharine Persinger. (They gave Fairbanks the honor of welcoming Alaska’s first Firehouse Subs in 2018.) Greg says he first experienced the chain while on the road competing as a member of the US Men’s world championship curling team.
locations.blazepizza.com/ak/wasilla/1080-east-steam-commons-ave
With its new airport concession, 49th State Brewing – Ted Stevens brings Alaska-made beers, ciders, and sodas to the Air Crossroads of the World. At 7,372 square feet, the leasehold is the largest in the Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport main terminal. The post-security restaurant on the C-Concourse shares a wall with a beer garden outside the secure zone; between them, a one-way chute passes through a small slot. The spaces used to be a Cinnabon and a branch of Humpy’s Great Alaskan Alehouse, a bar and grill in Downtown Anchorage.
Construction is formally underway at a facility to expand the already prodigious cargo capacity at Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport. NorthLink Aviation broke ground October 11 on the 120-acre site where new warehouse space will let shippers unload packages and clear customs in Anchorage instead of heading to international hubs at Los Angeles or Chicago. The air cargo terminal is slated to be complete by the end of 2025.
Within days of Ravn Alaska announcing it would cease operations at Kenai Municipal Airport due to a nationwide pilot shortage, rival carrier Grant Aviation stepped up. Grant Aviation added fifty additional flights per week between Anchorage and Kenai, a 30 percent increase over its previous service. The 35-minute route is used by commuters looking to avoid the Seward Highway, including Kenai Peninsula oil and gas workers.
The refurbished high-rise at 601 West Fifth Avenue in downtown Anchorage is getting a major tenant. Australian oil company Santos is moving its Alaska headquarters there. The company had been using two of the fourteen floors of the former Sohio and BP building in Midtown. Thanks to the company’s Pikka project on the North Slope, Santos expects to employ about 400 people in Alaska by the end of the year, filling seven of the nine floors at the Downtown building. Santos CEO and Managing Director Kevin Gallagher says the company signed a long-term lease, and he expects adding another oil company headquarters to Downtown will help revitalize the neighborhood.
The wholesale store in Kodiak, Cost Savers, is under tribal ownership. Kodiak’s Sun’aq Tribe and the Native Village of Afognak purchased the business as a joint venture in October. Afognak (a separate entity from the Afognak village corporation) is the majority partner with a 55 percent ownership stake. Tribal administrator Candace Branson told radio station KMXT that the village initially wanted to buy an empty lot near the store to expand farm programs (it has six on the island), and owning the store made sense.
Shoppers are flocking to a new indoor mall about 1 mile north of downtown Kodiak ahead of its scheduled grand opening in May. Kodiak Marketplace was built on the site of a former department store. Kodiak Area Native Association, which mainly operates a tribal healthcare system, invested in the property in 2014 and demolished the old building in 2021. The two-story mall covers 63,000 square feet, with room for a small grocery store, a bakery, a restaurant, a book shop, a post office, and a gift shop for Alutiiq Museum while it renovates its own building.