The borough received two proposals in the past few months to buy some of its land at the former 6-Mile mill site.
One was a pretty firm proposal. The other was a concept.
Tideline Construction, part of the half-century-old Juneau-based Channel Construction operation, applied in January to buy more than nine acres of borough-owned land at 6-Mile. Tideland offered to buy two parcels at the assessed value of about $250,000 and would like portions of three neighboring lots. It wants to grow its scrap metal recycling operation and expand into storing and repairing construction equipment.
The company proposes initially to spend an estimated $500,000 to put up a building and make other improvements.
Channel Construction has leased a small area at 6-Mile for several years as a staging site for its metal recycling barge runs to Puget Sound. The company has been sorting and hauling scrap metal and junked vehicles from Southeast Alaska since the late 1970s.
The borough said it needs to gather more information to further consider the request; the port commission already has given its unanimous support.
The land would need to be surveyed and assessed for a fair market price. The assembly will have the final say.
Then there is the concept presented to the assembly in December by a Washington state developer with a dream of building a clean-burning biomass boiler to take in trash and wood waste and generate clean heat to warm up large-scale commercial greenhouses to grow and sell produce. He also wants to build a water bottling plant, and a facility to turn fish waste into fertilizer.
Dale Borgford sounded knowledgeable and sincere when he presented his plans at a public meeting at City Hall in December. Though there were a few caveats: He’s never put his “octaflame gasifier” into actual commercial operation; there may not be enough water in the creek alongside the property to feed his bottling plant; and he needs $73 million to take on the project, even with the $14 million that he and his wife are willing to invest.
Borgford’s project could create a lot more jobs in town than Tideland Construction’s scrap metal and construction equipment repair shop. But half a dozen real jobs and real property tax revenues are a better bet for Wrangell than unfunded concepts of unproven boilers.
The borough drew $2.5 million out of its savings in 2022 to buy the former mill property. Tideland Construction is the best opportunity to date to start recovering some of that money.
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