orty years after downhill skiers first laid stakes on Mount Alyeska in Girdwood, the world-class Alyeska Resort opened its doors to guests in 1994. Three decades later, the resort is planning a major upgrade and expansion to meet the needs of guests—and the Girdwood community—far into the future.

Spurred by the COVID-19 pandemic, resort owner Pomeroy Lodging decided to look at Alyeska’s old master plan to see how the resort could be more attractive to guests and to employees who don’t want or need to make the thirty-minute commute from Anchorage. And not just employees at the resort but telecommuters from anywhere.

“COVID-19 led to people working remotely; because they no longer had to go to the city, they were opting to move to places where they wanted to live, like where they could ski or mountain bike,” explains Pomeroy Lodging Development Manager Willam Laurie. “This created some opportunities for us as a resort town.”

Working with resort master planners SE Group and Skylab Architecture, Pomeroy Lodging spent the last two years nailing down the operational details and gathering community input. The new master plan not only enhances the resort but includes numerous amenities for the 1,700 or so full-time Girdwood residents.

“Quite a few of the things we’ve got planned have been a long time coming, like a rec center for Girdwood and new housing products and commercial space,” says Laurie. “Now we’re in a place where we’re very comfortable with the plan, and we got city approvals in June, so we’re excited and ready to go.”

Renovations are already underway at the resort, with approximately half of the rooms completed. All the rooms are being completely updated and refreshed, and the aBar, previously Aurora Bar and Grill, has also been fully redone.

“We’re looking at more renovations to the common spaces throughout the hotel, which has been an ongoing effort since we purchased the resort at the end of 2018,” says Laurie. “We started with the Forte Restaurant, and we recently opened the Black Diamond Club lounge.”

Plans also include a new conference center separate from the hotel, which will be able to hold up to 600 people. “This is something that the resort has needed for a long time,” says Laurie. “When people come to Alaska for a conference from the Lower 48 or Canada, they’ll get the true Alaska experience by being out in the forest and not in the middle of the city. And the stunning mountains that serve as a backdrop will make it a great venue for large weddings as well.”

The company is also building Alyeska Village, a ski village with ground floor retail, restaurants, and a grocery store. Phase 1 of the Village will include roughly seventy condominium units with more to follow in Phases 2 and 3. The village will connect to the hotel and tramway and is designed for pedestrian traffic.

“The whole area will be walkable as well as ski in, ski out, which should keep the area bustling,” says Laurie.

One of the first things that Alyeska’s Alberta-based owners realized upon acquiring the resort in 2018 was that there was not enough staff housing. While building its new Nordic Spa, Pomeroy Lodging also built seventy-one studio and one-bedroom units that were completed a year ago—a far cry from the twenty-four units that previously existed.

When the resort is fully staffed, more than 750 people work at Alyeska, adding more pressure to an already limited housing market. To this end, Pomeroy Lodging will be building Moose Meadows Village on the current overflow parking lot, which will include 180 rental units for resort employees and other Girdwood workers.

“There’s been a huge outcry about the lack of housing over the years, so we wanted to make more units available to provide rental security,” says Laurie, noting that many of the area’s previous rental properties have been sold to become vacation homes or short-term rentals, if they haven’t been torn down entirely.

While speaking with the Girdwood community about the needs of the area, the issue of permanent housing also arose. “A lot of people who have been renting here for ten or fifteen years got priced out of the market when real estate became more expensive,” says Laurie.

To this end, Pomeroy Lodging will be creating Glacier Creek Village, an area that will offer more attainable units in addition to single-family housing that will give some priority to first-time homebuyers and people who have been living and working in the valley for an extended period of time.

“We’re really excited about being able to provide long-term, viable housing that will enable people to live in Girdwood and raise their families and to provide a way into the market without going through the conventional buying process where local buyers get shut out by people buying vacation homes,” says Laurie. “We’ll be providing a product that is not available now: smaller footprint homes on smaller lots. A lot of the properties on the market now are on large lots, with the average price for a detached home close to $800,000.”

Glacier Creek Village will be designed around existing trails, and a proposed trail system will enable homeowners to walk outside and hop on a ski trail from their own backyards.

Pomeroy Lodging is pleased that the new master plan was not created in a vacuum; the process was open to Girdwood residents, businesses, and organizations to determine what would work best for the company and the community. The company hosted a town hall several months in advance of beginning the community meeting process with the municipality. Later, it opened the site plan for feedback so that suggestions could be integrated into development at an early stage.

As a result of this interaction, Girdwood will be adding two much-needed facilities on Alyeska Resort land. The first, a state-of-the-art community center that will be run by the YMCA, will include a four-lane pool, two fitness rooms (one for equipment and free weights and one for cardio), a children’s room, and a multipurpose space that can be used for group fitness, meeting space, or special events, as well as an National Hockey League-sized hockey rink.

“As a Canadian company, we’re very passionate about hockey, so early on we knew we needed a hockey rink within the development,” says Laurie. “Local residents had been using the pool and fitness center at the hotel, and as we held our community meetings, we realized that this combination of a recreation center and ice rink would work here.”

According to Nathan Root, COO at YMCA of Alaska, discussions for opening a YMCA in Girdwood had been going on for two decades. When Pomeroy Lodging met with the community nonprofit Girdwood, Inc. and the Girdwood board of supervisors (a council for the local service area), they suggested that the YMCA would be a good fit to run the $15 million to $20 million facility.

While the YMCA is still finalizing the budget and building costs, the goal is to open the 30,000-square-foot community center in 2027.

“That’s a very short timeframe to build anything, and we’re already planning fundraising events,” says Root, adding that the YMCA plans to hold an annual gala at Alyeska starting in October 2025. “We’ve been meeting with elected officials and community members to discuss general fundraising and a capital campaign, and we’re also looking at grant opportunities. We’re doing anything and everything.”

The community center will lease the land from Alyeska, paying $1 a year for ninety-nine years.

“As a quaint little ski village, we don’t have a lot of recreational space,” says Root. “The weather at the base of the mountain is pretty wet during the year, and it’s hard to find things to do to keep kids active and out of the rain.”

YMCA of Alaska, which operates two locations in Anchorage and one in Wasilla, aims to bring its services to Girdwood. “This community center will provide organized, functional fitness opportunities and recreational fitness opportunities that people can afford,” Root says. “People have been using the pool and fitness center at the hotel, but it’s becoming so busy that it’s not sustainable. We’ll be able to provide a warm, safe, affordable place where people can stay healthy, make connections, and meet new people.”

A new location for Little Bears Playhouse will be located alongside the community center. Little Bears Playhouse, a childcare center, has been working with Alyeska for the past several years but has needed a new site for decades, according to Krystal Hoke, internal project manager for Girdwood, Inc. Alyeska offered the organization space on Tract B of its new development and has entered into a ninety-nine-year lease for $1 per year.

“We’d looked at various locations all over Girdwood, but they were going to be extremely expensive because of the lack of infrastructure,” says Hoke. “Our current building has been in operation for forty-two years and is past its useable life. We need to expand our capacity and have a safer building.”

The new facility, which will be owned and operated by Little Bears, will include rooms for infants, toddlers, and preschool children, as well as an executive director’s office, room for distance learning, and a possible multipurpose room. When completed, the childcare and learning center should be able to house approximately 112 children plus staff.

To date, the childcare project has raised $3.3 million through grants and donations. Construction is expected to be completed in fall 2026.

“Right now, Little Bears Playhouse is the only licensed childcare facility in this geographic area; parents need to drive to Anchorage otherwise, which can add four hours of roundtrip commuting to their day,” says Hoke. “Having a larger childcare facility in our community makes it more practical for parents to work.”

According to Little Bears Executive Director Rachel Byers, the current facility only holds twenty-seven children in two classrooms and has a waitlist of thirty-one students. “The demand for childcare here is through the roof; it’s essential for our community,” she says. “Parents aren’t even putting their children on our waitlist because of its length. There is a great need here for an intentional supportive learning environment.”

The project will take place in four phases, with Phase 1 construction beginning this summer with ground clearing; infrastructure work is scheduled to begin May 2025. Phase 1 includes Alyeska Village, the conference center, access roads, and a parking lot. The Moose Meadows Village project will be constructed in tandem, with roughly forty-five units of workforce housing being completed, as well as the community center and Little Bears Playhouse.

Phase 2 will include the build-out of additional condominiums and commercial space in Alyeska Village and more workforce housing, as will Phase 3. Phase 4 will include the construction of Glacier Creek Village.

While predicting how many jobs these projects will create is not easy, Laurie estimates approximately a decade of construction to come. Comparable projects employed roughly 400 construction workers and associated trades, with most positions going to local hire.

Even though this is a huge undertaking, Pomeroy Lodging believes one of the most important aspects of the project is that it preserves the forest-like feel of Alyeska Resort.

“A lot of the structures will sit close to or below the tree line, and you won’t see the village area until you’re right on it,” says Laurie. “We’ve been working with Skylab Architecture to maintain a natural feel throughout the whole development by using materials natural to Alaska and trying to maintain as many trees as possible in order to minimize our footprint.”

He adds that planning has tried to consider every single angle, from wetlands and drainage to traffic volume and more. Laurie says, “We’ve been working with some of the best groups in the nation to design this to make it successful. We really love this place and want to see it grow in a healthy way, and we’re excited that we can provide some aspects that everyone in the community can enjoy.”