Assembly votes to proceed with $25 million harbor grant application

The borough assembly has voted to proceed with an application for $25 million in federal funding to rebuild the Inner Harbor, Reliance and Standard Oil floats, including a commitment that Wrangell would come up with $5 million needed to fully fund the estimated $30 million project.

“This is a little bit of a gamble,” Mayor Patty Gilbert said at the Feb. 13 assembly meeting. Still, it’s a good bet “if you can parlay $5 million into $30 million,” she said.

“This is an ambitious project, but it’s very much needed,” Gilbert added. The harbor floats are decades old.

The borough expects to hear in August whether it will receive the grant.

“We’ve applied a couple of different times, and this year we feel we have a real great chance to get it,” Interim Borough Manager Mason Villarma told the assembly. “This will hopefully be ‘three times is the charm.’”

A condition of the grant application is that the borough commit to covering all costs above the maximum $25 million grant award.

Villarma said that if the project comes in at the engineer’s preliminary estimate of $30 million, and if the borough issues bonds for the $5 million, the cost to repay the debt would come to about $275,000 a year for 30 years, depending on interest rates.

Taking on debt is the last resort, he said. “We will pursue all alternate funding sources,” including state and federal grants.

If the borough issues bonds, the debt would be repaid from harbor revenues.

The project would increase the number of moorage spaces for 34-foot and 40-foot vessels, increase maneuvering space in the aisles and between float fingers, and provide new electrical hookups at boat stalls, new lighting and water utilities to the floats. The work would also include new ramps, steel pilings, dredging and expanded parking areas.

The assembly voted unanimously Feb. 13 to submit the grant application, which is due Feb. 28.

There is $1.5 billion available this year under the highly competitive nationwide program administered by the U.S. Department of Transportation under the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. The program is known as Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity, or RAISE.