 View looking east of the ice rink and office tower | |
 | |
| Location | Anchorage, Alaska, United States |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 61°08′35″N149°52′05″W / 61.143116°N 149.86815°W /61.143116; -149.86815 |
| Address | 800 E Dimond Blvd |
| Owner | Ashlock family |
| Stores and services | 200+ |
| Anchor tenants | 3 |
| Floor area | 728,000 square feet (67,600 m2) |
| Floors | 2 main |
| Parking | Free, uncovered |
| Website | dimondcenter |
TheDimond Center is a regionalshopping mall inAnchorage, Alaska, United States, located on the southwest corner of East Dimond Boulevard and theOld Seward Highway in south Anchorage. This is the largest enclosed mall in thestate ofAlaska,[1] though the open-airTikahtnu Commons in NE Anchorage has a greaterGLA.
The 728,000 square feet (67,600 m2) mall is anchored byBest Buy,Dave & Buster's and a 9-screenRegal Cinemas theater. In total the Dimond Center contains over 200 stores, restaurants and services, including a six-story office tower at the mall's southeast corner. The lower level in the office tower also contains a smallfood court, abowling alley, and ahealth club, all arrayed around anice skating rink. The office tower is home to the Anchorage branch ofiHeartMedia (formerly Clear Channel Radio), including the studios of radio stationsKASH,KBFX,KENI,KGOT,KTZN andKYMG.
Thesection line road leading south from Anchorage to the rural settlements of Rabbit Creek and Potter became theSeward Highway in the early 1950s and the Old Seward Highway about 20 years later with the construction of a 4-lane freeway slightly to the east. The Old Seward Highway formed the backbone of what became south Anchorage, both in terms of access to residential subdivisions and homesteads, as well as businesses which catered to both nearby residents and highway travelers.
As south Anchorage began to grow, the intersections of the Old Seward Highway with Dowling Road and with O'Malley Road originally began to develop as commercial hubs for the area. This changed after Larry Carr and Barney Gottstein acquired and subsequently developed large amounts of acreage throughout Anchorage, mostly with intent to expand theCarrs grocery chain. Their initial foray into south Anchorage occurred at the corner of Dimond and Old Seward, across Dimond Boulevard from the east end of what became the Dimond Center. This turned what was originally intended as industrial land into retail land, no doubt helped by the development boom associated with thetrans-Alaska pipeline during the 1970s.
Dimond Center opened in 1977 withSafeway andPay 'n Save as itsanchor stores.[2] It underwent a major expansion in 1981, adding a replacement Pay 'n Save drug store and other stores.[3] In 1982, a competing development, the Great Northern Mall, was announced for the tract of land across the Old Seward Highway from the mall. Owing to a real estate-related economic crash which befell Anchorage during most of the middle and late 1980s, only a small portion of that proposed development was ever constructed, mostly near the Dimond Boulevard and New Seward Highway intersection. This tract was fully developed during the 1990s centered onbig-box stores, which supplement the Dimond Center as a destination for shoppers from a vast geographical area.
Arefrigerant leak on May 20, 1991 resulted in the death of the skating rink's assistant manager and injured 33 others, including six whose injuries required hospitalization.[4] Amovie theater was added in 1996.[5] TheDimond Center Hotel was later built on the mall's southwest corner, which was largely financed bySeldovia'sNative corporation, Seldovia Native Association, Inc. The Samson-Dimond Library, a branch of the Anchorage Public Library and an original tenant of the mall, closed at the end of 2010 due tobudget cuts.[6]
By 2020, Dimond Center has continued to evolve in order to meet this constantly changing lifestyle and needs, wants, and experiences of Alaskan community. This includes addition ofelectric vehicle charging stations and welcoming new tenants such aslululemon, andCinnabon.[7]
Refrigeration gas spewing from a ruptured pipe killed an ice-skating rink worker, left two others in critical condition and forced the evacuation of the Dimond Center mall just as businesses were getting ready to open Monday morning. William Temple, 24, the assistant rink manager, was found unconscious shortly before 9 a.m. near the large compressors that power the ice rink's cooling system. Freon-like gas was erupting from a broken pipe near his body, according to firefighters
