Now, as construction crews race to finish the facility by Feb. 14, a deadline that has been extended from original plans to complete the job in mid-December, McLean's forethought has paid off. Like miniature fountains, strands of multi-colored wiring spill out of light fixture bases set next to walkways currently covered with packed snow.

McLean, who works for the Fairbanks-based electrical contractor AC/DC Inc., is waiting for a break in the subzero temperatures to install the light fixture covers at the new credit union, an 8,000-square-foot, two-story building being erected at 10th and Cushman streets.

The light fixtures arrived at the job site about a week ago, he said Jan. 27. Daytime temperatures that day ranged in downtown Fairbanks from minus 35 to minus 51 degrees Fahrenheit. "When it's this cold, just getting to work is bad," McLean said.

Paint and finishing workers were also adjusting to the winter temperatures, according to Raelynn Holland, vice president of MAC Federal Credit Union. "We just got permanent heat in. Prior to last week, they were using space heaters, which caused all kinds of issues," she said. "When they would try to paint the exterior walls, the cold comes through and the paint won't stick."

Once construction is completed, cleaning up the normal construction debris outside the $3 million building will be a challenge, Holland said. "All that construction stuff is frozen in ice."

The trend of winter construction work is growing considerably in Alaska's Interior, particularly in Fairbanks, which has experienced a substantial construction boom in the last two years.

While making for some uncomfortable work conditions, winter construction work is providing some stability for what traditionally has been summer seasonal employment.

"It helps to make the industry a more reliable source of income for those tradesmen who need a year-round income," said Bert Bell, president of GHEMM Co., a general contractor based in Fairbanks.

His company is completing its fourth winter of work building the new 500,000-plus-square-foot military hospital on Fort Wainwright, scheduled to be completed in early 2006.

Winter construction work kicked off in a substantial way in Interior Alaska during the oil pipeline days, Bell said. GHEMM Co. spent one winter in the early 1980s building the Big Dipper Ice Arena, starting construction in August with a completion deadline the following March, in order for the facility to accommodate the Arctic Winter Games, Bell said. "We were spending $1,000 a day just to heat the facility," he said.

Winter work slows employees, who have to take more safety precautions, Bell said. Additionally, construction efficiency oftentimes slows, in part because many materials that normally would be stored outside the facility in summer months must be contained within the heated shell in winter, forcing workers to jostle items around the limited available space.

"There are all kinds of economic reasons not to build in the winter, but it's almost become the industry standard up here," Bell said.

Steve Shuttleworth, building officer for the city of Fairbanks, and his staff are also working during winter months. Despite the cold temperatures on a Friday in late January, his crew of four workers had scheduled 35 inspections on new construction sites. "Years ago, that would be the number for the whole week," Shuttleworth said.

When he started work in the city's building department in 1979, Shuttleworth said that winter months were quiet, "...like Sleepy Hollow. From about the 15th of October on, it was as if we all took a little siesta."

The amount of construction work, combined with improved technology and materials, has changed that trend. "Even at 45-below, you'll see plastic bubbles over commercials buildings. You just didn't see that 25 years ago," he said.

The use of reinforced poly vapor barrier, which holds heat better, has proliferated on construction sites as a temporary enclosure, Shuttleworth said. Insulation installed in buildings has also increased, requiring less Btus to heat an enclosed shell. Changes in concrete pouring and the use of battery-powered tools also helps winter construction workers, he noted.

Demand pushes work into the winter

But more than the improvements in building techniques and technology, demand has caused the Interior construction season to expand. "The economic engine is such that developers' buildings can't be built in a compressed time ... there's so much more work that it can't all be done in four months," Shuttleworth said.

Within the Fairbanks city limits, new construction spending totaled $111 million in 2005, down from the annual spending record set in 2004 of $141 million. This year, Shuttleworth anticipates about $85 million of construction work in Fairbanks, still considerably higher than average annual construction spending in past years of $42 million to $45 million.

New construction expected to start in 2006 includes a $30 million expansion and remodel of the Fairbanks Memorial Hospital and construction of a Best Buy store in Fairbanks, Shuttleworth said.

Large construction projects that started in 2005 and are continuing through the winter and into 2006 include a three-story, 53,000-square-foot office building called the Fairbanks Financial Center, being built by Alaska USA Federal Credit Union. Scheduled to be completed in May 2006, according to John Combs, facilities manager for Alaska USA, the financial center is located off of the Old Steese Highway, a booming retail and commercial zone in northeast Fairbanks.

Located in the same new development area, Fairbanks-based Mt. McKinley Bank is building a branch office on a section of land between the new Fred Meyer and Wal-Mart buildings. The bank is spending slightly more than $1.8 million to construct a 4,100-square-foot facility, due to be completed and open this winter, according to Craig Ingham, president and chief executive officer of Mt. McKinley.