By GARLAND KENNEDY
Sentinel Staff Writer
The Assembly voted Tuesday night to put out a request for information to look into possible development options for the Harbor Point area, a 17-acre coastal parcel just south of the ferry terminal on Halibut Point Road.
Mayor Gary Paxton told the Assembly that the RFI would allow for a wider array of options than would a request for proposals.
“The RFI allows us to look into two options, both residential and tourist expansion,” Paxton said.
City Administrator John Leach said an RFI would allow the city to solicit a range of choices, while an RFP would specify the type of development to be considered, as well as conditions to be met.
“An RFI is our market research and the Assembly can find out what options are available,” Leach said.
In a No Name Mountain-Granite Creek Master Plan discussed in a joint work session between the Planning Commission and the Assembly last month, the valuable Harbor Point parcel was singled out for development of either recreational tourism or high-end housing. Consultants hired by the city concluded that most of the upland portion of the 830-acre No Name Mountain property would have very high development costs, largely because of its rugged terrain.
Harbor Point is the only waterfront portion of the undeveloped city-owned property.
Assembly member Steven Eisenbeisz said he hoped that an RFI would provide some clarity on what the city hopes to do with the land.
“We don’t know what we want with this chunk of land yet. The RFI is going to help us know what we want,” Eisenbeisz said.
From the public, Karl Potts, president and CEO of Shee Atika Corp., said the Sitka corporation would like to bid on the property for recreational tourism development.
After the meeting, city Planning Director Amy Ainslie explained the difference between an RFI and an RFP.
“You are kind of testing the market (with an RFI), you’re saying the parameters are pretty loose. You’re not looking for any particular outcome. You’re seeing if we were to make this land or building available, what would the market like to have done with it,” Ainslie said. “An RFP is a little more tailored to say we want this property to be used for a particular purpose. Who would develop, operate it, et cetera. And usually there is a dollar figure associated with it.”
In a letter to the Assembly, Ainslie said about half of the respondents in a public survey supported using the land for tourism development, with one quarter hoping for high-end housing and another quarter expressing a variety of ideas from dock development to conservation.
The motion to issue an RFI passed without opposition, though some on the Assembly had argued in favor of an RFP instead.
Assembly member Kevin Mosher stated that time was important, and he wanted to see the parcel developed.
“I’d like to see something happen, if it was high-end housing, I don’t really want that, but so be it,” Mosher said. “I just don’t want this to fall through the cracks.”
Mayor Gary Paxton agreed, saying that “time is of the essence.”
Assembly member Richard Wein spoke in favor of an RFI.
“I would prefer an RFI. I would prefer if it’s going to recreation it goes to a lease,” Wein said. He expressed concern about possible tourism development of the land as well.
In his comments to the Assembly about Shee Atika’s interest in the property, Potts said “the benefits for the community of Sitka for a tour-related plan are many .... additional business revenue to existing small businesses can be increased by outside tourist traffic.”
He cited a Southeast Conference survey earlier this year which states that Sitka business have seen about a 60% decline in revenue in recent months, and added that “a thoughtfully developed plan would help to balance distribution of tourist traffic between the cruise dock into downtown.”
Potts argued that tourism development could help the city regain revenues lost during the pandemic.
“The city is already stretched thin in terms of loss of revenue, a private sector tourism development could create lease fees, sales tax revenue and property tax. And that could begin fairly immediately, as soon as 2021,” he said.
The Assembly packet with all attachments and a video recording of the meeting is available at cityofsitka.com.
