On Wednesday night Skagway’s Borough Manager Brad Ryan and planners from PDC Engineering held a virtual meeting about Skagway’s Port Master Plan. The plan features upgrades to Shoreline Park, the Broadway dock, the State Ferry and Ore Peninsulas, plus a new tour staging area for cruise ship passengers.

The municipality is set to assume control of the port in March of 2023 and is looking to solidify plans moving forward. The virtual meeting on Wednesday night showcased PDC Engineering’s vision for how to improve the port.

Some of the highlights of the presentation included a new tour staging area that would encompass the current broadway dock parking area, and the land currently used by Alaska Marine Lines, or AML. This is considered Phase 3 of the Master Plan and is currently in the conceptual stage. Assemblyperson Reba Hylton likes the look of the plan, but worries about traffic flow if all the tour busses access the new concourse via Broadway Street.

“I liked it, I’m a little concerned that it’s going to be very congested. And I believe that working on traffic patterns ahead of time is super important,” said Hylton.

To make room for the new staging area, the Master Plan calls for moving AML from its current location just west of the Broadway Dock staging area to just north of the Ore Facility next to Petro Marine. A key element to that move, according to Hylton, would be a roll-on roll-off dock.

“That needs to happen. It’s kind of archaic, what’s been going on down there. And this will only make everyone else’s job a lot easier,” said Hylton.

A roll-on roll-off dock would make AML barges accessible to trucks that could drive aboard the barge with their payload. Currently, AML loads and unloads barges using a Pass Pass system. That means that oftentimes a forklift on the barge transfers a load to a forklift onshore.

The master plan also proposes a new sea walk connecting the Railroad Dock and the Broadway dock staging area to avoid confusion as passengers walk back to their ships. It would be built on land currently used by the small boat harbor as a storage and maintenance area. 

Phase 1 of the Master plan is installing water and sewer lines through Shoreline Park just south of Centennial Park. According to Borough Manager Brad Ryan, the municipality will use a COVID mitigation grant to bring the water and sewer lines as close as possible to the ferry dock, while also making those lines available for the new restroom near Pullen Creek. 

“This was the primary mitigation for the COVID grant as to increase restrooms and pedestrian traffic so they’re not interacting as much, stop the crowding,” said Ryan during the meeting.

The grant expires at the end of June if it isn’t used, which is why Phase 1 of the project is moving along quickly. That grant will cover the production of the Port Master Plan by PDC Engineering, the water and sewer lines, plus irrigation, landscaping, and fencing within the park.

The restroom facility itself, which is part of Phase 2 of the Master Plan will be funded by a General Obligation or G.O. bond approved by voters in 2011. In an effort to stave off future interest payments on the bond, the restroom project is being fast-tracked. According to manager Ryan, he hopes bids will go out at the end of this summer, with construction to be completed by May of 2022.

That structure will have a replicable design that will be used in future public restroom facilities within the port area. Discussions of extended floating docks to enable arrivals of so-called mega-ships are ongoing, as are artistic design decisions.

The Port Master Plan is available for viewing at skagway.org.