By ARIADNE WILL
Sentinel Staff Writer
Traffic patterns in the vicinity of Harrigan Centennial Hall were the focus of a Planning Commission forum to help members and city staff working on the Sitka Short-Term Tourism Plan.
Representatives of such entities as Allen Marine, Sitka Sound Cruise Terminal, Alaska Coach Tours, and Sitka Tribal Enterprises attended the Wednesday meeting held both in person and over Zoom.
City Planning Director Amy Ainslie began the forum by asking participants to take 15 minutes to respond to five questions about the Centennial Hall area. Information gathered at the forum will be presented back to the Planning Commission at a later date.
The questions:
– What’s currently working well in the area?
– What safety concerns need to be addressed?
– What general inefficiencies need to be resolved?
– Where are “pinch points” and “bottlenecks” arising?
– What unmet needs should the city try to accommodate?
Of primary concern to partipants was the number of buses that can fit in the loop in front of the hall.
Chris McGraw, who operates Sitka Sound Cruise Terminal, said the space will need to accommodate four buses at once in order to adequately disperse cruise passengers.
He said the shuttles between his dock in the 4500 block of Halibut Point Road and downtown will be accommodating 4,000 to 5,000 passengers daily.
That will mean local tour operators also will be pressed for space.
Brainstorming on ways to stage passengers produced ideas utilizing areas at the front, sides and rear of Centennial Hall, near the boat launch.
Centennial Hall building manager Tony Rosas suggested the use of bollards to keep the rear of Centennial Hall closed off for tourists and tour operators.
Other suggestions were for signs about the location of restrooms, bus stops for The RIDE, and the Sitka Historical Museum. There were also suggestions for tourism-related parking in the Crescent Harbor parking lot and a short taxi lane on Harbor Drive, where there are a few parking spots.
A second part of the forum asked participants to consider how space in the Centennial Hall vicinity can be optimized.
Ainslie divided the space around the building – mostly a series of parking lots and small plazas – into ten parts. The parts were then discussed one at a time.
Most of the suggestions and concerns brought up under this part of the meeting were mentioned by Kaleb Astle, Sitka operations manager at Alaska Coach Tours.
Astle said buses potentially could loop around the back of Centennial Hall, but noted that wouldn’t be possible on days when the lightering dock is in use.
He said his buses are limited in their capacity to make tight turns, ruling out many places where staging and picking up passengers might have been a possibility.
A diagram of Centennial Hall and its labeled adjacent areas can be viewed by visiting sitka.legistar.com, clicking the agenda listed across from the Oct. 6 meeting date, and selecting the “HCH Area Diagram” hyperlinked under Item C.
Those interested in receiving more information on upcoming short-term tourism meetings may send their email addresses to planning@cityofsitka.com.
Comments, questions, and concerns regarding the Short-Term Tourism Plan also can be sent to that address.
