
Sean Debenham
83:16 - 84:00
"a hotel has no design standards requirement, right? But if I want to do multifamily, I have to increase my cost by 15% in order to achieve those design standards. And so why do we have design standards for multifamily, and we really desperately need multifamily, but no design standards for hotels"
“a hotel has no design standards requirement, right? But if I want to do multifamily, I have to increase my cost by 15% in order to achieve those design standards. And so why do we have design standards for multifamily, and we really desperately need multifamily, but no design standards for hotels”
- Speaker
- Sean Debenham
- Timestamp
- 83:16 – 84:00
- Community
- Alaska News
- Location
- Anchorage
- Captured at
- August 28, 2026
From the transcript
I think what— sorry, I think what Tyler was actually trying to say, because he had that little slide up there, and what his point was is that a hotel has no design standards requirement, right? But if I want to do multifamily, I have to increase my cost by 15% in order to achieve those design standards. And so why do we have design standards for multifamily, and we really desperately need multifamily, but no design standards for hotels, right? Like that's the dichotomy that we have here. As far as the saturation point, like, you know, there's smarter people here than I am, but the bottom line is that Anchorage has a lot of— not only do we have a lot of tourism that come here, we have a lot of seasonal workers that come here during the summertime, right?
Related Coverage
Anchorage developer says fire lanes cost his 58-unit project 15 homes
At a Commonwealth North forum in Anchorage on Thursday, developer Sean Debenham said fire code drive-aisle widths and a nine-month permit wait cut units from his 58-home Raspberry Townhomes project, while a municipal official listed fee and code changes meant to speed building.
