T-Rex-Fic!

ANCHORAGE - The "D" in HUD, of course, refers to development. But it could also stand for "dinosaurs. " Dinosaurs, for example, like a Pterosaur, a Troodon or even a T-Rex whose remains are on display at the Alaska Museum of Science & Nature in Anchorage.

The Museum was the brainchild of professors at the University of Alaska at Anchorage who envisioned an institution that would focus exclusively on the geology, paleontology, biology and archeology, of Alaska. It first opened its doors in 1994 in Eagle River, a community about 15 miles northeast of Anchorage.

T-Rex remains on display at the Alaska Museum of Science & Nature in Anchorage

Our largest state's largest city, the Municipality of Anchorage certainly appreciated the important roles museums play in a community. In the Museum of Science & Nature, however, it saw an institution that could spark the revitalization of its Mountain View neighborhood just a few miles east of downtown that, at the time, was the City's most distressed areas. With too much crime, too few jobs and very little opportunity, Mountain View was the kind of place where few people wanted to go or to be.

Relocating the Museum from Eagle River to Mountain View, the City realized, might be the catalyst to turn around the neighborhood. So, in 2003 the Anchorage Assembly and then-Mayor Mark Begich approved use of $535,000 in HUD Community Development Block Grant funds to acquire an empty warehouse and three lots in Mountain View that, after extensive renovations, became the Museum's new home in 2004.

More than a decade later, it's a decision that's still paying dividends. Thanks to the hard work of the Municipality, organizations like the Cook Inlet Housing Authority, the Alaska Housing Finance Corporation, the Anchorage Community Land Trust and the Rasmuson Foundation and, most importantly, the people of Mountain View, more than $80 million - much of it from HUD - has since been invested in the neighborhood.

The result? A "new" Mountain View. More than 320 units of new rental and homeownership housing. A new school. A new library. A new grocery store. New shops and restaurants and services. And, for the first time in a very long time, a local financial institution.

So much has happened so fast - and so well - that in 2014 the American Planning Association awarded Cook Inlet the HUD Secretary's Award for Opportunity and Empowerment. Mountain View's revitalization, as noted by HUD at the time, showed that "that a great vision and a lot of elbow grease can work miracles." And, by all accounts, it all started with the City's $535,000 investment of Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funds.

By any standard, the Museum of Science & Nature has been a hit. "Fabulous," one visitor told Trip Advisor. A "gem," said another. "I loved it," said a third. No wonder visitor totals have risen 20 percent annually with "just under" 18,000 visitors in 2012.

With three schools and a Boys &Girls Club with more than 1,000 members within a mile of the Museum, it's also been a hit with kids. No wonder. ""So often we hear people when they come in tell their kids, 'Don't touch, don't touch,' and we're kind of the opposite in that," Kerri Jackson, the Museum's director of education, told The Mountain View Post. "A lot of what you see around you, you can touch."

Our "field trips" to the Museum said the manager of the Club, "fill-up very quickly and "often a second trip is necessary to accommodate all the youth that want to attend."

And it's been a hit with other organizations in the Mountain View community. The Museum, wrote Leslie Ellis, president and chief executive officer of Credit Union 1, "has been an essential colleague in the effort to revitalize and build the Mountain View community," an effort, she adds, would have been "impossible" without the Museum's "participation, input and loyalty to this area." As the Museum's executive director commented in 2013, "The Museum loves this neighborhood."

That's evident from the Museum's plans to expand and build a new exhibition hall. While keeping one eye on its one-of-a-kind collection of creatures and relics from times long past, the Museum - like the Mountain View community it lovingly calls home - are keeping the other eye on and preparing for an even brighter future.

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