The borough is not looking to inhibit private development or evict business owners with its pending purchase of the former sawmill property at 6.5 Mile, no matter the rumors on Facebook, Mayor Steve Prysunka said.
The property owner accepted the borough’s offer of about $2.5 million for the 39 acres, with closing on the sale expected June 1.
More than 50 replies and comments were added to a Facebook posting last month, questioning whether the borough would kick Channel Construction off the property. The Juneau-based company periodically collects scrap metal, including vehicles, at the site for barging south to recyclers.
At the borough assembly’s March 22 meeting, Prysunka said Wrangell’s leadership is not out to scuttle private enterprise.
Channel Construction’s business fits the industrial waterfront development use of the former sawmill site, he said March 29.
“We can’t start working with people, private/public partnerships, we can’t do anything until we actually have site control,” he said.
Prysunka said the borough is in talks with William “Shorty” Tonsgard, of Channel Construction. The scrap-hauling business “is an excellent use of that facility,” the mayor said. “Having access to the water, that may be something, moving forward, he may want to work with the city toward … or having a piece of land there. We are talking to him, and hopefully meet his needs moving forward.”
Tonsgard did not reply to the Sentinel for comment Monday.
A business adjacent to but not included in the property being sold to the borough is Larsson Storage, which provides indoor and outdoor storage and 24-hour on-site management.
“It's not on that same site,” owner Leif Larsson said last Thursday. “It's separate. … The city is purchasing what remains of the mill property.”
Prysunka said Larsson’s portion was once part of the site, but was divided out and sold.
The mill property owner, Betty Buhler, has been “chunking it out over the years,” the mayor said. The portion the borough plans to buy is “dramatically reduced in size, but it is still the most industrial piece.”
The borough has been trying to acquire the mill property for quite some time, Prysunka said. People have approached Borough Manager Jeff Good to say, “If the borough can get that property, we have ideas,” he said.
“Many times, a municipality can leverage other funding sources that individuals can’t toward development,” such as grants, Prysunka said. The borough has access to certain funds, which would allow it to do things “in a certain way that creates cost savings, so we can find efficiencies that private individuals can’t.”
The mayor said he is hopeful that after the borough takes control of the property “we will be able to start to move forward (and) turn these ideas into tangible business opportunities at that property.”
Until then, the mayor asked online commenters to “please stop speculating.”
“I had another citizen come up to me, who didn’t hear what I said (at the meeting), and said the (borough) doesn’t have a right to get in business. The idea is we are trying to encourage business,” he said.
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