Protect Your Investment
Before You Close.

Anchorage's commercial inventory reads as distinct waves, and each one fails differently. The 1964 Good Friday earthquake levelled much of the original downtown core, so a large share of what stands there is post-quake reconstruction built to the codes of its moment. Midtown's office and strip-retail stock is largely a product of the pipeline boom of the 1970s and early '80s — fast construction, low-slope roofs, and mechanical systems now well past their design life. Ship Creek and parts of Spenard hold older industrial and warehouse buildings, some pre-dating the quake entirely. Larry spent 38+ years building in Alaska before inspecting here, which is the difference between noting that a roof is failing and knowing which era built it that way.

Low-slope roofs are the single most expensive thing we look at, and Anchorage is hard on them. Snow accumulates and stays, drains freeze at the outlet, meltwater ponds and refreezes at parapets and mechanical curbs, and the resulting ice works at every flashing and penetration on the deck. Roof-mounted equipment adds curbs, and every curb is a seam. We walk the deck where it is safe to do so, document the covering, drainage paths, penetrations, and flashings with photos and condition ratings, and where structural capacity or an active leak needs an engineer or a roofing contractor to open the assembly, we say so plainly rather than guessing.

Mechanical and site conditions carry the rest of the risk. Commercial buildings here typically run hydronic heat — boilers and glycol loops — and a system that has been patched across three owners rarely matches its own documentation. In unheated or partially heated warehouse space, freeze protection on wet sprinkler lines is a recurring and expensive problem. Outside, frost heave and spring breakup work on asphalt, curbs, and site drainage every single year, and differential settlement shows up in slabs, loading docks, and at additions where two foundations meet. Anchorage also sits in an active seismic zone — the 2018 M7.1 was a reminder — so we note visible structural, anchoring, and unreinforced-masonry concerns as part of the inspection and refer anything beyond a visual assessment to a structural engineer.