As part of its effort to attract a U.S. Coast Guard vessel to homeport in Wrangell, or at least bring its repair work to a proposed new shipyard in town, the borough had a design firm prepare drawings of two potential housing development sites.

The artist renderings — conceptual illustrations — show what multi-family housing could look like at the site of the former hospital on Bennett Street, and a mix of multi-family and single-family housing that could be built in an expansion of the Alder Top Keishangita.’aan subdivision just south of Shoemaker Harbor.

Both sites are owned by the borough.

“The goal of this effort was to demonstrate housing potential” for the Coast Guard and for attracting federal grants for construction of a shipyard at the 6-Mile Mill site, said Kate Thomas, the borough’s economic development director.

A privately owned and operated shipyard, as the borough is promoting in partnership with JAG Marine Group, could employ up to several hundred workers. New housing would be needed if the shipyard project goes ahead, regardless of a Coast Guard homeport, Thomas said.

Housing for such a large increase in the town’s population could be a key factor in whether the shipyard can obtain federal grants and ship repair contracts to make the project economically viable.

The drawings are to “give them (the Coast Guard) a vision of what’s possible,” Thomas said.

Nothing more is planned on the housing potential at this time, she said. The conceptual drawings cost less than $20,000.

Borough officials have been talking with the Coast Guard, Alaska’s congressional delegation and other federal officials to promote Wrangell as a homeport and/or as a service station for federal vessels.

“We want to showcase the land we have,” Borough Manager Mason Villarma said in an interview earlier this month. 

“It’s a chicken and the egg,” he said in response to a question from the public at a July 14 community update on the shipyard project. A developer would need a commitment for home sales or renters before investing money in buying and preparing land for construction.

“Nobody is going to build the field of dreams,” Villarma said at the meeting at the Nolan Center.

The drawings prepared for the borough by Cushing Terrell, a national engineering and design firm, show a possible layout for 60 housing units developed in five three-story buildings at the former hospital site. The development would include the six borough-owned lots adjoining the property, bringing the footprint to just over three acres.

The Alder Top subdivision expansion could provide at least an additional 60 housing units, depending on demand. The conceptual drawings show a blend of single-family and three-story multi-family walk-ups and duplexes, Thomas said.

The borough successfully sold all 20 residential building lots earlier this year in its Phase 1 development at Alder Top, with plans to sell four more lots later this summer. The borough is considering a partnership with a private developer for 16 lots in Phase 2, with the borough putting in power lines and the developer taking on streets, utilities and the rest of the development costs.

The land in the Cushing Terrell drawings, proposed as Phases 3 and 4 at Alder Top, would be farther uphill from the initial development, with an additional area on the south side of the property.