Taking Flight

Planes don't land anymore at Weeks Field, Fairbanks first municipal airport. But dreams - and lots of them - are taking flight there.

Dreams like the Retirement Community of Fairbanks' to provide safe, secure and affordable housing for senior citizens so that they don't "have to leave their friends and move out of state for adequate housing opportunities." Or the dream of expanding housing opportunities for families in a state whose rental costs rank, year after year, among the 10 priciest states in the Union.

Those dreams began coming true in late October, with the grand opening of phases 1 of Weeks Field Estates, built on the site of the badly-deteriorated, but now-demolished Fairview Manor.

It's comprised of two buildings with 28 one, two and three bedroom apartments each. The first building's already leasing-up and the second should be ready for occupancy by Thanksgiving.

But it's only the beginning. "Things," Fred Free of Community Development, Inc., the developer of Weeks Field Estates, told The Fairbanks News-Miner on opening day, "are going to happen faster from here on."

He's right. Thanks to a loan from the Alaska Housing Finance Corporation and Tax Credit Assistance Program funds from HUD under the Recovery Act funds, financing for Phase II of Weeks Field Estates has been secured. It, too, will have 56 affordable rental units for families. Ground is expected to be broken next Spring. And residents of the now-gone Fairview Manor have the option to return to the new, Weeks Estate complex.

And that's not all. The Retirement Community of Fairbanks will also have its shovels at the ready next Spring.

Thanks to financial assistance from Alaska Housing Finance Corporation's Senior Citizen Housing Development Funds, the Rasmussen Foundation and HUD, that's when the Retirement Community of Fairbanks will begin construction of the first 20 units of Raven Landing Apartments. With plans ultimately to have up to 70 market-rate apartments and condominiums, It will, says Alaska Housing Finance executive director Dan Fauske, will provide housing "specifically designed to meet the physical, emotional, recreational, social, financial and similar needs of seniors."

In decades past, Weeks Field was a place from which the people of Fairbanks departed. Today, it rapidly is becoming where you arrive and, then, call home. And, better still, the home will be affordable.

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