From the Feb. 4, 2004 issue of the Sentinel, workers are shown building Wrangell's belt freezer facility. At first servicing the adjacent seafood processor by lease, Trident Seafoods has approached the city with an offer to purchase the freezer.
The Wrangell Borough Assembly held an executive session on July 15 to discuss the sale of its belt tunnel freezer facility. It had been approached by the building's current lessee, Trident Seafoods.
Giving some background, Assembly member Julie Decker explained the freezer had been part of a three-phase process to enhance local seafood processing infrastructure. Beginning in 2003 with the addition of mobile equipment such as the plate freezer and fillet machine line, in 2004 the belt freezer plant was constructed at the old mill site, adjacent to the processor, back when it was Wrangell Seafoods Incorporated. The initial investment came from a combination of city funding and a state grant. The final phase of the improvements was the addition of a cold storage facility at the site.
In 2012, WSI's successor Trident Seafoods updated the freezer facility to accommodate the processing of fish oil. The facility was under lease to the processor, an arrangement which has continued to the present. Decker explained the offer to purchase the facility made economic sense, in part because it incentivized further such investments.
Currently the city receives a $15,000 annual rate for the lease. A sale of the building and its high-volume equipment is currently being negotiated. Borough manager Jeff Jabusch explained an appraisal had been conducted for Trident by a third party, and that the city was currently reviewing that assessment.
"We're still gathering information," he said.
Wrangell's charter currently requires that the sale or lease of public property valued at $1,000,000 or more must be put to a vote by the people. Transactions for lesser amounts need to be approved by the Assembly. Jabusch declined to put an estimate on the property's value at the moment, citing the ongoing negotiation.
"It's a moving target at the moment," he said.
A question raised during April's sale of the mobile processing equipment as surplus which applies to the freezer facility, was whether it would be permissible for the city to dispense with grant-funded items, or if it would have to repay the state because they were acquired through grants. Checking with the Department of Commerce Community and Economic Development, Jabusch said the sales were allowable, but that the city was asked to reinvest any proceeds back into projects of a similar vein, be it value-added processing or marine services.
The Assembly was scheduled to hold another executive session regarding the facility's disposal on Tuesday evening.
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