Kenai was the only city in the central Kenai Peninsula to see growth in retail sales during the first quarter of this year over the same period last year.
Mayor Pat Porter congratulated Kenai businesses for the 2.44% increase…
Mayor Porter: “Kenai’s a wonderful place to live and shop in and I’m hoping it’s because people are taking very seriously shopping local and how important it is to your municipality that you live in or that you frequent, it’s very important to their bottom line. So I’m very excited as well as the Administration and the rest of Council to see that seems to be happening and we want to keep it happening.”
Development along the northern end of the Kenai Spur Highway was strong last year, though there’s been a pause in some construction since oil prices began to drop. Porter said it’s possible the optimism around Nikiski has helped boost sales…
Mayor Porter: “I know we have a tremendous amount of activity going on our in the North Road area and a lot more residential homes are being built in this area, which causes people to shop here. Tourism is certainly important, but pretty much we mostly have residential or stable employment for this area.”
Other districts along the Borough reported decreases in taxable sales, ranging from negative 3.54% to negative 5.06%.
The recent figures for Kenai play into a historic trend; 2014 was a stronger year than 2013 by 5.79% while other districts on the Peninsula reported increases of just .33% to 2.77%.