Moose Horn opens a year after blaze
By JILL FANKHAUSER
Alaska Star

A year to the day after the Moose Horn building burned to the ground, David Mallers, owner of the historic property, handed over keys to the sole occupant of the new Moose Horn keeping to his promise that a new building would be ready within a year of the fire.

Owner Dave Mallers rebuilt the Moose Horn, which is contracted out by a school bus company. The new building reopened exactly one year after the fire.

A fire decimated the Moose Horn in the early evening hours of Dec. 18, 2007. It housed eight apartments with 13 residents, Mallers’ industrial diving shop and mechanic shop, bus parking and office for school bus contractor Forsythe Transportation.

The fire burned all night and a firefighter kept watch on the property for a couple days afterward to make sure that nothing else caught on fire, Mallers said. But there was nothing left to burn, there was only concrete and steel.

There is still no determination as to what caused the fire it may have been electrical wiring or a faulty chimney flue Mallers said.

“I think I’m very lucky it happened at five in the afternoon and not three in the morning, we would have lost people,” Mallers said. “As it was, I think one goldfish was unaccounted for so no loss of life.”

The new 6,000-square-foot building no longer has wooden add-ons or apartments. It’s purely an industrial building constructed from metal and concrete. Mallers opted not to build apartments because he wanted keep the property solely industrial and he didn’t want the hassle of renters. He also would have faced an uphill battle with the municipality of Anchorage to get it zoned and permitted for residents, he said.

“The Moose Horn I see in the future is going to be definitely easier for me to manage,” Mallers said.

The Moose Horn building is a local landmark. Built in 1946, it was the first post office in Chugiak, the only telephone in the area and a popular fuel stop between Anchorage and the Valley.

It started as a workshop with a set of moose horns over the door. Locals even considered naming the area Moose Horn before they adopted the name Chugiak in honor of the local Alaska Native population.

It was a trading post for homesteaders and a place to get a hot shower. Moose Horn was a hodgepodge of apartments, office and industrial space that adapted for over 60 years.

“For the community around here there’s a historical significance with this location,” Mallers said. “And it’s evolved, it’s changed.”

Mallers bought the property in 1999. He was running his own industrial dive shop out of his backyard and needed space. When he bought the place, Mallers said it was an eyesore with a lot of industrial trash a graveyard for trailers and equipment.

Forsythe Transportation parks its buses at the Moose Horn building and used its bus barn to maintain its vehicles. The fire destroyed their offices Dec. 18, 2007. Owner Dave Mallers reopened the building exactly one year later. Forsythe is the only leaser in the building.

He focused on clearing the land and invested $200,000 to clear a parking area and install giant head bolt heaters to get a contract from school bus company First Student, the former tenant before Forsythe.

He kept up the momentum, upgrading the property with a hard rock quarry that would flatten the eight-acre parcel and open it up for more industrial buildings. He started Moose Horn Quarry in October 2007, just a couple months before the fire.

“I think the fire, in a way, is a blessing, because we are moving forward… it’s just kind of a catalyst to say keep moving,” he said.

Mallers plans to put up another three or four buildings and offer parking space for contractors who may have equipment like dump trucks that need a place to park.

“We should be able to take five or six contractors and take them out of their backyard and get them into an industrial area where they are not bothering their neighbors,” Mallers said.

Mallers said there was no question that he would rebuild when the fire happened.

“It wasn’t a hesitation. It wasn’t even a consideration not to (rebuild),” Mallers said. “It’s just what you do. I use it as my shop, I still need a shop. I am not going to quit doing business. I still had a contract with (Forsythe) that runs through 2011. I am hoping that it renews to 2016. Contractually for them, I needed to build.”

The day after the fire, Mallers brought in an office trailer and put up a temporary building to house buses for Forsythe mechanics. Four managers shared a tiny trailer and it was always packed with people checking in, getting keys or waiting as a standby driver said Forsythe’s general manager David Dickerson.

The 65 Forsythe employees had to use portable bathrooms and a small shack as a break room, but they stuck with Mallers during the construction something Mallers said he is grateful for.

“It’s nice to have room… it was really tight in our little trailer,” Dickerson said. “It’s warm and everyone was happy about the bathrooms.”

Dickerson’s favorite part of the new building is being able to see all the people and get everyone together in the same space. He has a bird’s eye view of the Moose Horn entrance on the Old Glenn Highway, the bus yard and the mechanic shop.

The new building offers a bus barn able to house four school buses, a dispatch office, mechanic and management offices, parts storage and a break room.

There are a few finishing touches to be made, but when it’s all finished, Mallers said the building would cost $1 million.

Eventually Mallers plans to build a new space for his dive shop (currently run out of a temporary building on the property he owns next door). He hopes to devote a quadrant of his building to local old-timers. He hopes to put in a couch, a coffee pot and a cribbage board.

“It’s just going to be for the people who have memories of Moose Horn and can maybe develop some more memories of Moose Horn.”

Mallers is planning an open house in February.

Reach the reporter at jillfankhauser.@alaskastar.com.

This article published in The Alaska Star on Thursday, January 15, 2009.