Eric Jordan examines the underside of his troller, the I Gotta, from the bow of a Harbor Department skiff. Jordan volunteered his boat to test the slings on Sitka’s new Travelift, which is the essential piece of Phase I of a publicly-owned boat yard at the Gary Paxton Industrial Park. Further work is needed before boats can routinely use the yard however: A washdown pad will not be installed and operational until late summer. (KCAW/Woolsey)
Seeing Eric Jordan’s troller, the I Gotta, rise out of the water on the new Travelift, with the words “City of Sitka” painted across the massive upper beam, was an impressive site – for the few people who endured the wind and the rain to see it.
Although it was just a demo to test the slings, and the I Gotta was lowered back into the water not much later, it was still the first. Unfortunately, the board of the Gary Paxton Industrial Park was inconveniently stuck in their advertised meeting back in town, and didn’t get to watch.
Park director Garry White filled them in on the play-by-play. The grouting to secure the piles that support the Travelift pier had just cured that morning, after a long wait for warmer weather.
For White it was a good day, but one he hoped had arrived sooner.
“Things are moving along,” said White. “I wish they were moving faster, but, you know, at one of the public meetings we said, ‘Let’s, let’s try to get this right instead of fast.’ And so we’re at the last few minutes here. The good news is, construction is done, the machine’s here, and once we get this operating agreement finalized, hopefully the pricing comes down to where some folks are a little bit happier.”
The operating agreement is being finalized with Kodiak-based Highmark Marine, who won the bid to manage the new facility. But other than the Travelift, there’s nothing to operate yet. Still missing is a permanent washdown pad, where boats will be sprayed down with high-pressure hoses after they come out of the ocean. White said rebar for the concrete would not be available, delaying the pad possibly for months.
In the following exchange, board member Lauren Howard asked White if that timeline could be refined.
Howard: “I know you don’t have a number, but like before we said maybe June. So now we’re thinking September? You say months for the rebar, that’s very ambiguous. Two months, five months?”
White: “Well,it depends on how we can get through the appropriations to get the funding to get the rates lowered, and then finalize the contract with Highmark. I’m assuming that’s going to take a couple months. They told us from the time we pulled the trigger on the wash down (pad) until we get it constructed, is three months. We’re hoping that’s going to happen faster. So I’m thinking, August. I’m hoping.”
Howard: “I’ve had a lot of people call and ask when they can start scheduling. And I’m like, ‘I don’t know, June, July?’ So just a reference point of where they can think. A lot of people are planning. They’re trying to plan when they’re going to haul their boats. They want to haul here. So they want to have an idea of what they should be planning for.”
White asked board members to consider the option of spending $15,000 on a contract to install a temporary washdown pad, or to wait and spend the money on permanent upland improvements.
Among the audience members attending the meeting was Cooper Curtis, the CEO of Highmark. He had been in meetings earlier in the day to work out a plan that would lower the proposed rates to haul out boats and park them in the yard when it’s completed.
Curtis said the meeting had been productive, and while he couldn’t disclose the strategy they had discussed, he said, “It’s a good improvement. It will simplify the process, reduce the cost, which is what we’re all looking to do.”
