The borough will get all of the land it owns at the 6-Mile mill site cleaned up, cleared out and leveled for future development in exchange for giving close to 10 acres of the property to Juneau-based Tideline Construction, which plans to move its base of operations to the site.

The borough estimates the value of the work at $880,000.

The work will include removing concrete footings, foundations and a building left over from the mill operations; clearing out a large pile of wood chips; removing railcars that were used as bulkheads at the waterfront site; removing downed power lines; clearing out abandoned heavy equipment; and grading the entire area.

“We’ll get 32 acres that are actually sellable,” after transferring ownership of 10 acres to Tideline, Borough Manager Mason Villarma said in an interview the day after the assembly approved the deal at its May 13 meeting.

In addition to clearing the old sawmill property, Tideline Construction also agreed to accept discarded appliances, vehicles and scrap metal from the borough’s solid waste transfer station at no charge.

The agreement calls it “a perpetual commitment by Tideline to accept municipal scrap metal,” at a considerable, long-term cost saving to borough, Villarma said in his report to the assembly.

Tideline Construction is a sister company of Juneau-based Channel Construction, which has operated a scrap metal collection business in Southeast Alaska for years, barging the material south for recycling. Channel has operated its scrap metal sorting and shipping business under a short-term borough lease at the 6-Mile site.

In addition to basing its scrap metal operations in Wrangell, Tideline plans to base its heavy equipment repair and construction work in town, creating several new jobs in the community.

The company in January offered $250,000 to buy the almost 10 acres, later working with the borough to amend the proposal into a work-for-land trade.

The port commission, planning and zoning commission and economic development board all recommended approval of the deal.

The borough purchased the 6-Mile mill site in 2022 for $2.5 million, looking to sell or lease the property for commercial use.

No members of the assembly or the public spoke against the deal at the May 13 assembly meeting.

William Tonsgard, Tideline’s owner, spoke via Zoom at the meeting. “We’re excited to base ourselves out of Wrangell,” he said, adding that the company has long been active in rock-crushing work around Southeast and now wants to get back into construction work.