Tree removal and re-painting starts at Anchorage downtown park

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) - The Municipality of Anchorage wrapped up on Wednesday its first phase of upgrades to Town Square Park in downtown Anchorage.

It’s just the first step, according to City Manager Becky Windt Pearson, a process that includes removing trees and repainting the park.

“The first phase is what you’re seeing right now, which is just an initial cleanup,” Windt Pearson said. ”We have been painting over some graffiti that’s been in the park for a period of years ... we needed to do a clean up of this space and make sure we brought it back to its original condition, which was intended to be a blank canvas with flowers and trees. So that’s the move that we’re making right now.”

Additionally, Windt Pearson said city workers would be removing trees to create improved sight lines, both as a safety precaution and also as a precursor as the city prepares to set up security cameras in the early fall.

“The funding for and the purchase of those cameras went through the Assembly last month,” Becky Windt Pearson explained. “Next year is when you’re going to see the really big changes start to happen. There was $2.9 million on the bond this year that passed that will be used for a real capital redo of the park that will take place in summer 2026.”

However, not everyone is on board with the new changes.

“They’re getting ready to take down the fence,” said Anchorage resident Richard “Ziggy” Zeigler. “They’re going to open it back up and people come down and see the damage that they’ve done to your community. Come down and see what they wiped out the color of this community. Come down and see there is no more color.”

Zeigler told Alaska’s News Source that he was one of the artists who painted what he called murals in the park. Those murals, he said, included traditional Alaska Native designs and also a memorial wall for people who died outdoors or from addiction or homelessness.

According to the municipality, those murals were initially not city-approved, but over time, the city’s park and recreation department allowed it to continue.

Zeigler described the removal of the artwork and the park reconstruction as public discrimination toward certain groups.

“When you use the public income to discriminate against certain groups of people because you don’t want them laying in the park that [has] got hills and shady trees,” Zeigler said. “They’re taking [the fences] down after they sterilized the whole damn thing … try to push the homeless and the Native people out of here.”

The city responded to Zeigler’s claims on Wednesday, saying it is aiming to make the park a safe place for all residents.

“I think that the mayor’s approach is multi-pronged and so certainly the desire to make the park a better space is a desire to make the park a better space for everyone,” Windt Pearson said. “I think that a safer space is safer for all members of our community.”

Zeigler said that he believes the funding should be used instead to provide more mental health and housing resources downtown.

Starting this summer, the city will be implementing a pilot program where the Anchorage Fire Department’s mobile crisis response team will hot spot problem areas —like downtown — providing crisis care to people in need.

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