Downtown Skagway on a quiet morning.
For the first time in years, there are plenty of summer housing options available for renters in Skagway. The loss of tourism due to the pandemic means many seasonal workers will not return this summer, and their apartments are all empty.
Nils Davis and his partner Skipper Stovall own and operate a car rental company and the coffee shop Bites On Broadway. Last year they had 11 employees working for them, but they’ve decided to stay closed this year.
“There’s just not enough traffic on the streets. And we felt like Glacier Smoothies, the other coffee shop in town, was open for the winter and if we open we might take even a little bit of business from them,” Davis says. “It wouldn’t be worth it for either one of us to be open that way. So we thought maybe it would be better to sit back, wait it out and see what happens.”
Davis says he and his partner normally provide accommodation for their employees. They have 8 rooms available above their coffee shop.
Now they are trying to see if they can rent them out to anyone looking for a place. They haven’t had any luck yet.
“Which is really weird because it’s usually like you couldn’t find a closet to sleep in,” Davis says.
They will also offer rentals over the winter, which they haven’t done in the past.
But Davis isn’t the only one struggling to find renters.
Skagway Brewing Company owner Mike Healy has also been trying to fill up rooms. Last year he carried out a huge expansion, opening new restaurants and a new brewing facility. The company hired lots of new staff and bought Sergeant Preston’s Lodge in order to provide more employee housing.
Healy says those rooms have served a new purpose since the pandemic began.
“We’ve actually turned a wing of Sergeant Preston’s into self-isolation rooms, so we got some business that way.”
Healy has multiple properties that he rents out. He says he usually turns away 50 to 150 people every summer because they fill up so quickly. These days he’s at about 20% occupancy.
There are some folks taking advantage of the vacant spaces. Healy says he has been able to lease some of his nicer properties.
“Our nicer rentals for seasonal managers or key employees, we don’t need that this year, so we’ve dropped our rates and offered year long leases for people,” Healy says. “There’s been a pretty good response for that.”
Healy says it’s a difficult time for everyone, but the silver lining is that without so much cruise traffic this summer, residents can enjoy the place they live for a change.
