Preparations for home-porting a U.S. Coast Guard fast response cutter are under way here with construction to start Sept. 1 on a 250-foot wharf, with a 200-foot floating dock and associated upland facilities, along Sitka Channel.
Coast Guard officials reported on the project last Wednesday at a public meeting held at the Sitka Maritime Heritage Society's Japonski Island Boathouse.
Last August, the Coast Guard announced the award of a $50.475 million contract to the Whiting-Turner Contracting Co. for design and construction of new facilities on the Coast Guard property so the cutter Douglas Denman, with a crew of 24, can be relocated to Sitka.
The project could be complete by the end of 2028, USCG officials said last week.
The 154-foot cutter Douglas Denman, built in a Louisiana shipyard in 2022, is one of two fast response cutters currently homeported in Ketchikan. The ships are assigned to federal fisheries law enforcement and perform safety and security missions in the USCG Arctic District and beyond.
Once in Sitka the Douglas Denman will be moored on the outside of the new floating dock, which will be “north” of the new wharf, where the 255-foot buoy tender Kukui will be moored, USCG design project manager Marshall Smith said at the meeting Wednesday.
Smaller support vessels will tie up on the inside of the new floating dock, Smith said.
The new facilities are meant to replace the deteriorating Coast Guard pier in Sitka Channel that currently provides moorage for the Kukui.
“One of the reasons that we’re doing this project is that that thing is falling apart,” Smith said of the old pier.
Demolition of the old pier “was originally a part of the plan,” Smith said. “Due to budgetary constraints it was removed from this project, but at some point in the future it is possible.”
He noted that the Coast Guard now owns the properties upland of the old pier, and where the new wharf and floating dock will be built.
In April 2025, the state Department of Education and Early Development sold two tracts of land, covering about 1.29 acres along the Sitka Channel, to the Coast Guard.
The lands, across the street from the Mt. Edgecumbe High School aquatic center, were originally designated for MEHS “student recreation.” The Coast Guard already had a long-term lease for one of the tracts, which it uses for vehicle parking near the Kukui.
The other tract, now owned by the Coast Guard, is a mini park, with trees, shrubbery, a memorial bench and a swingset.
The Coast Guard now owns lands extending to the swingset; the state still owns a small tract of waterfront lands, just before the access road turns up to Mt. Edgecumbe High’s upper campus.
Once the USCG breaks ground on the project, the swingset will be moved to that state-owned parcel, Smith said.
When the project is complete, a fence will wrap around the Coast Guard lands from the the current Kukui dock and the current location of the swingset, Smith said.
The Coast Guard will try to save and re-plant the shrubbery, including rose bushes, at the site, USCG environmental protection specialist Erin Hale said.
Hale said the shrubbery, and some trees along the channel, will need to be removed while new utilities are installed and harbor support buildings are constructed on the site.
Interpretive signage is also planned for the site, as a way to mitigate the environmental and historical impacts of the project, Hale said. She added that a draft of the proposed signage will be sent to community members.
Hale said the Coast Guard is taking on a separate project that could provide housing for some of the 24 USCG personnel, and their families, who will be moving to Sitka with the Douglas Denman.
“There’s planning in right now to recapitalize the existing housing over on the Coast Guard property near the air station, and then to build additional homes to help with offsetting the personnel coming," Lt. Moira Meek said. “It’ll be for 60 existing units, recapitalizing those, and building 20 new units” on the Coast Guard property.
Coast Guard Marine Safety Detachment supervisor William Glenzer noted that some of the multi-family housing units, which were barged from Metlakatla with the opening of Air Station Sitka in 1977, contain lead and asbestos which will be removed.
The existing housing on Lifesaver Drive is located on the more than 165 acres of Coast Guard property on Japonski Island.
About 20 members of the public were at the open house, which included a Power Point presentation, a review of project renderings, and a walk from the historic boathouse through the Coast Guard project site.
Old timers at the open house recalled the time when a shore boat dock was on the project site. Before the O’Connell Bridge was opened in 1972, only shore boats connected Sitka and Japonski Island, and the entire island community was known as "Mt. Edgecumbe," attendees said. The Mt. Edgecumbe post office and a restaurant, the SAFE Harbor Inn, also were located on the waterfront site.
