Next year, Wrangell will be home to a hot new tourist attraction — public restrooms. Portable facilities will appear downtown in the late spring to meet tourist demand and to reduce the strain on area businesses.
“We’re looking at doing some sort of mobile trailer type of restroom,” said Tom Wetor, director of the Public Works Department. The trailers will sit at the intersection of Campbell Drive and Front Street, near 56º North and Angerman’s.
Facilities will include four private stalls, complete with sinks. Two of the stalls will be wheelchair accessible. Petersburg uses a similar setup during their busier summer months, Wetor said.
The department explored augmenting the permanent public restrooms that already exist behind the Elks Lodge, but the mobile trailer option proved more cost-effective. Expansion of the existing restroom building would have cost roughly $400,000 to $500,000, whereas the mobile setup will cost roughly $100,000 to $120,000.
Ease of operation is another benefit of the mobile system. The bathrooms will be “tied into the city collection system so (public works staff) don’t have to pump them out all the time,” Wetor said. He anticipates moving the new restrooms into position in late spring and removing them in the early fall of each year.
The Public Works Department, Harbor Department and Samson Tug and Barge have all been involved in the planning effort, since the restrooms will be placed on land that Samson Tug and Barge leases from the harbor. Partly in response to company stipulations and partly to improve the amenities for visitors, the Public Works Department will place a fence between the restroom and barge areas. It may also install benches and trash cans nearby.
Caitlin Cardinell, executive director of the Stikine River Jet Boat Association, presented the issue at a borough assembly meeting last spring. “When a thousand people flood into town,” Cardinell said, “one of the most common questions I get asked is, ‘Where are the restrooms?’”
“If the city continues to move forward with its downtown waterfront plan,” she added, “having more accessible and a higher number of public restrooms is paramount.” The borough developed its waterfront master plan with contractor Corvus Design in 2015. The plan involves short, middle and long-term development goals, including an elevated boardwalk along the waterfront and a park where the freight yard is currently located.
It was too late in the season for public works to implement their mobile restroom plan last summer, but the restrooms should be ready for the upcoming tourism season.
Airline and cruise ship tourist numbers increased steadily between 2012 and 2019. After a sharp drop in 2020, numbers have begun to rise toward pre-pandemic levels. In 2019, Wrangell saw 21,540 cruise ship passengers and 14,637 airline passengers.
“We get pretty busy and cruise ships are only going to increase and continue,” Wetor said. The project will help the borough “get ahead of the curve.”
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