Fairbanks North Star Borough

The Fairbanks North Star Borough (FNSB), a local government unit similar to a county, covers 7,361 square miles and has 82,840 residents. Within the Borough are two cities, Fairbanks and North Pole as well as several unincorporated communities.

As Alaska's second largest city, Fairbanks is an important trading, transportation and military center. Residents of nearby North Pole, Fort Wainwright Army Post, Eielson Air Force Base and surrounding areas come to Fairbanks for shopping, entertainment and employment. The key industries in Fairbanks are: oil & gas, mining, education, tourism, construction and military.
- FairbanksChamber.org -

While many are willing to commute to work sometimes taking as long as an hour to reach their Fairbanks job location, their home shopping behavior is different. A one hour radius can mean that a home buyer is willing to live anywhere from Salcha to Chena Hot Springs, Eielson Air Force Base to Ester and beyond, but the list of available homes is too long of a list to visit in a timely manner. Virtual tours including video and photo allow home buyers to view homes online, via DVD or CD-ROM. This means they can better select your selling property from this tour and request a home showing.

FNSB Military
Military expansion leads to increase of off base housing. To address this increased troop strength, the Army has contracted with five local hotels for 850 beds through February, with an option to extend through May to house troops whose children are in school. During this time incoming troops will presumably be looking for housing, while outgoing troops are moving out of theirs. This takes us to a discussion on the medium term housing challenge facing the Army and the Fairbanks community.

FNSB Construction Report
Last quarter (Fall 06) we introduced information that reported that the New Housing Units Authorized data gleaned from local City of Fairbanks, City of North Pole and Fairbanks North Star Borough (FNSB) permits significantly under-represents new construction in the FNSB. This is because construction outside of the cities of Fairbanks and North Pole do not require building permits. Over the past ten years the permit data has reported an annual average construction of 246 new residential structures, compared to an annual average of 609 reported by the FNSB Assessing Department. This is corroborated by a ten year annual average of 568 electric utility hook-ups per year.

The population gain in Alaska was slightly faster than the 5.9 percent growth in the same period for the United States as a whole. The number of people living in the state climbed from 627,533 at the time of the July 1, 2000, to a provisional July 1, 2006, estimate of 670,053. - Community Research Quarterly Fall 2006 -