A new company says it’s cooking up plans to build a luxury resort and event center in the hills of Fairbanks, on land with ties to gold mining history and a brief stint on television.
The main developer says he wants the project to benefit locals and help solve problems, like outmigration. But while those ideas have been percolating, so has nearby skepticism.
The vision
When cabinet-maker Keenan McKirgan first opened the website for North Star Grand Lodge, he thought it looked, in a word, “dishonest.”
McKirgan owns property close to the lodge’s planned location in the Ester Dome area, home to mining claims, residences and popular trails.
“It felt like something that somebody outside of Fairbanks, that didn’t know anything about this town, might fall for,” he said.
The website features vivid images of attractive cabins, a modern hotel and a glowing arena among picturesque backdrops. They purportedly communicate the vision of Daniel Keck and his colleagues at DX/DT, a startup incorporated in Delaware last year, according to business filings in that state.
On a day in early April, Keck sat behind a small desk in an office and lab space on the 187-acre property on the west side of the Fairbanks North Star Borough, where DX/DT is also testing vacuum-insulated glass. Visuals of cabins, similar to those on the website, were printed in color and stacked on the desk.
“I think we have 35 or 36 of these types of units that are gonna be peppered in the more natural areas of the property,” Keck says.
He calls them "wilderness units." And yes, he said in an interview, artificial intelligence created the concept images.
“I’m not necessarily interested in hiring people that can create renderings when there’s this remarkable tool out there that does remarkable things,” he said.
He founded Mackenzie Keck, a construction management firm incorporated in New Jersey in 1992 that’s helped build upscale retail stores, according to Keck and filings in New Jersey, as well as multiple news reports and trade publications from the 2000s.
Following a brief retirement, he’s now the executive director at DX/DT, and the face behind plans for the for-profit 343-key luxury resort and a nonprofit 3,600-seat event center, called The Block, which could reshape tourism, recreation and traffic in the hills around Ester Dome. He said he hopes the project will improve the quality of life in the Fairbanks area.
“I hope it brings commerce. I hope it puts the community in a situation where everybody can win. And if you can get luxury heads in luxury beds, everybody else will follow,” he said.
If built, the development would be constructed at the Ryan Lode property, land long connected to the Bartholomae family. A 1971 report from the U.S. Department of the Interior says Bartholomae Oil Corp., of Fullerton, Calif., secured the Ryan group of claims in 1938.
William Bartholomae made millions in oil, mining and ranching before he was stabbed to death in 1964. He’s the father of Sarajane Bartholomae, who currently holds title to the Ryan Lode property, according to borough records. She and her adult daughters appeared in the 2013 mini-series Alaska Gold Diggers, which follows their efforts to mine in Nome and the Ester Dome area.
“I’m really stoked to check out my family’s land here in Fairbanks,” Tori Bartholomae Hartling says in episode three during a breakaway interview after they first pull up to the Ryan Lode property.
Bartholomae Hartling is one of Sarajane’s daughters. She's also Keck's wife. In response to interview requests, she sent a statement that said, in part, that her mother’s yearslong stewardship of the land preserved the possibility for it to support something “capable of honoring the past while contributing meaningfully to the future of Fairbanks.”
The cost
Keck guesses costs for making his ideas reality will total $400 million when all is said and done. Beyond the lodging and sports and entertainment venue, which the company says could functionally replace the borough-owned Carlson Center, the website also shows concept images for an astronomy tower, a climbing wall, a helipad and more.
Private investment in the form of ultimate beneficial owners, or UBOs, will fund the project, according to Keck. Though he wouldn’t name names, Keck did say the money would come from domestic sources and that his company might also seek local dollars in the future.
According to an unsigned memorandum of understanding with the Fairbanks North Star Borough, the $110 million in funding for The Block, specifically, could also include tax-exempt bond financing and bed tax support.
But Keck said he believes the model will work "with or without cooperation from the borough." He’s confident – inspired by built environments in Scandinavian countries – and puts the chances it’ll all come together at 60%.
“I would not bet against this happening,” he said.
But the sheer magnitude of the project would be new.
“I am not aware of any projects of that size in the Fairbanks area,” said Kim McGinnis, an assistant professor of business administration at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
McGinnis is focused on work to foster and teach local investors. But she said that’s not the only way to do things.
“I can’t speak to the particulars of this one, but outside money can play a role in helping support economic development,” McGinnis said.
That’s to say, she can see possible benefits of the project.
“But there’s a lot of T’s to cross and I’s to dot,” she said.
That includes juggling the interests of investors and dealing with Interior Alaska’s short construction season. There are other hurdles, like sourcing water, something the company claims it would overcome by building an on-site water production and treatment facility.
Several residents KUAC spoke with were also concerned about increased traffic on the narrow roads.
An unofficial traffic analysis posted to the company’s website estimates Henderson Road, where the project would be located, would see daily traffic increase six- to 10-fold, even on days when there wasn’t an event at the venue.
“People recreate on that road. People live right on the road,” said Sheree Dohner, a retired public health nurse who lives nearby. “It would completely ruin that neighborhood."
That same analysis also estimates a roughly four year timeline for construction of the project. And to McKirgan, the cabinet-maker, the whole idea seems “hairbrained.” But if it does get built, then sure, he said, maybe he could one day build cabinets for North Star Grand Lodge.
“If they commission local workers to do a lot of other things, yeah, there’ll be a short-term boon for the economy, he said. "But whether that’s actually a trusting and continuing relationship with the community is kind of completely up in the air."
Still, McKirgan doesn’t consider himself opposed to development. He said he could be all for the idea, but that’s only if the company holds itself accountable, follows through on commitments and takes care of the community.
This story has been updated to include additional details about plans for The Block.