The borough is considering purchasing the 38.59 acres at the former sawmill site at 6-Mile Zimovia Highway for a possible tourism or other collaboration with Sealaska, the regional Native corporation for Southeast.
Finance Director Mason Villarma said the borough met with Sealaska CEO Anthony Mallott on Feb. 9.
Discussions, which are still in a very preliminary stage, included a potential partnership with Sealaska for the property as a deep-water port for tourism or a specialty mill for the corporation’s wood products division.
Sealaska officials had not responded to Sentinel requests for comment as of Monday.
The borough assembly has been discussing a potential land buy since Dec. 14, recessing into executive sessions closed to the public on Dec. 14 and Jan. 11 to talk about “the possible acquisition of land.” Such private discussions involving financial matters are allowed under the state’s open meetings law.
It wasn’t until the public agenda for this Tuesday’s assembly meeting that the specific topic, “Potential Mill Property Acquisition Update and Discussion,” was disclosed. The borough manager has been included in the executive sessions.
The waterfront development-zoned site was first listed on the market with Petersburg-based Anchor Properties in 2019 at $2.7 million, said Bennett McGrath, owner and broker at the real estate firm. She has received soft inquiries, but no offers for the property.
The former sawmill land is “on a deep-water port with three existing warehouse-type buildings and one mechanic shop. Most of the land has existing concrete and a boat launch,” according to its listing.
“I would love to sell the mill as a whole to somebody, but I am also tasked with breaking it down to 23 individual lots and selling them individually,” McGrath said Monday. “I have had interest in the past from people who have wanted to buy the mill as a whole, but no one has tendered an offer.”
In the meantime, the legal team for McGrath’s client and property owner — Betty Buhler, former co-owner of Silver Bay Logging with husband Richard Buhler, who died in 2016 — is fulfilling the borough’s request to remove the deteriorating dock from the borough-owned tidelands in front of the property, McGrath said.
The borough said her client could get out of the tidelands lease, for which the owners have been paying $14,000 a year, if they return the tidelands to its original state, McGrath said.
The dock “is in extremely poor condition and it’s falling apart,” Carol Rushmore, the borough’s planning and zoning administrator, said last year.
Buhler has contracted with Tim Heller, of Heller High Water, to remove the dock, who has been out there with his work barge and is about a third of the way done with removing the pilings, said McGrath. When he’s 80% of the way there, Anchor Properties will come back to Rushmore to report that the owner is almost done fulfilling the borough’s stipulation.
Until that time, the property surveyor, Juneau-based PDC Engineers, can’t stamp the property map for recording. “Once it’s recorded, we have legal definitions, legal addresses and assignments of legal names to the lots,” McGrath said.
Buhler has been talking with the borough since 2019 about possibly subdividing the land for industrial use. The proposed subdivision would include about two dozen lots, ranging in size from 0.36 to 2.36 acres. Utilities would be installed for the subdivision.
The property is surfaced with asphalt, concrete and gravel pads, and is mostly cleared of buildings and debris. A sawmill started operations at the site in 1962. The Alaska Pulp Corp. closed the mill in 1995. Silver Bay Logging later purchased the property and operated the mill intermittently until 2008, according to a history written by former Alaska Pulp executive Frank Roppel.
“Demolition of the mill was essentially completed in 2011,” Roppel wrote.
Reader Comments(0)