By SHANNON HAUGLAND
Sentinel Staff Writer
The Alaska Department of Education is taking public comments about the planned sale of Stratton Library, the library for Sheldon Jackson College, which closed in 2007.
In 2010 college trustees sold the building to the state for use as an extension of the nearby Sheldon Jackson Museum, also owned by the state. The education department announced its intention to sell the building, and its preferred alternatives for its future use in an April 15 posting on the state online public notice website. The public comment period will close on Thursday, May 16.
Stratton Library pictured in 2023. (Sentinel File Photo)
Sitka’s Sen. Bert Stedman announced last year his plan to have the state convert the vacant and unused library building into a new state courthouse, and the Sentinel asked Stedman to comment on the education department’s preliminary best interest decision on sale of the building.
“The courts (the Alaska Court System) have a proposal to purchase the building from the Department of Education,” Stedman, co-chair of Senate Finance Committee, said Monday. Museums, including the Sheldon Jackson Museum, are part of the Department of Education.
The intent, the Sitka Republican said, is for the building to stay in state ownership. To that end, $2 million is currently in the state courts budget to purchase the property from the Department of Education, and convert it into a new courthouse, office space for Supreme Court Justice Jude Pate, and museum display and storage space for Kaagwaantaan clan property (masks, regalia, etc.) currently housed elsewhere.
“This will facilitate both needs,” Stedman said Monday. “Courts and museums will look at designing areas to store and display artifacts in a museum- quality atmosphere. And we have a Supreme Court justice from Sitka, and I encouraged the court system to make sure Justice Pate has an office in Sitka, where he’s from.”
Moving the courthouse could create the benefit of freeing up space at the city-state building at 304 Lake Street, to allow for expanded uses by current tenants, the Sitka Police Department, the Department of Fish and Game, and the Department of Labor, Stedman added.
The Department of Education posted a notice of its intent to sell the property on the state online public notice website (https://aws.state.ak.us/OnlinePublicNotices/) on April 16, setting a deadline of 4 p.m. May 16 for public comment. The Sentinel learned of the posting from a member of the public in Sitka on Friday. The Sentinel did not receive a public notice or news release about the sale from the Department of Education.
Stedman announced his plan for the old library last year when he included an item in the state budget for renovating the building as a courthouse and museum.
In the background information posted online about the proposed sale, the Department of Education listed its “preliminary best interest decision” is:
“Alternative 1: (Preferred). Sale of the Stratton to help meet the original intent of its acquisition to provide critical museum-quality space for the Sheldon Jackson Museum.
Alternative 2: (No Action) Do not offer the Stratton building for sale. Retain the property within DEED under management of LAM (the state Division of Libraries, Archives and Museums).”
It said that under its preferred alternative the sale price would stay in the Department of Education for use in the LAM division.
Stedman, the co-chair of the Senate Finance Committee, has been working for over two years on a plan for the state to purchase the building for use as a courthouse, including an office for Pate; and storage and exhibit space for Kaagwaantaan clan items housed elsewhere in the state and Sitka.
Last year the governor included $420,000 in the state budget to cover the cost of design work for a remodeled Stratton Library. In a Sentinel interview last June, Stedman outlined a plan for the new courthouse, space for Pate, and “preservation and display space for the Sheldon Jackson Museum.”
The state purchased the library building from Sheldon Jackson College for $2 million in 2010. The building has been vacant since then except for one year when it was used as the city library while the city library was being renovated and expanded.
The public notice on the state website said the building was appraised in November at $1.8 million, and that $14.5 million in “identified rehabilitation costs” was found.
The notice says the state purchased the building to address “pressing facility needs at the Sheldon Jackson Museum, including inadequate storage space for the growing museum collection and a dedicated area for educational programming.”
Stedman said he has been approached by members of the Kaagwaantaan clan about clan property housed around the state, including at the state museum in Juneau and elsewhere around Sitka.
He said in his early talks with the court system, he has talked about the need in the design “to incorporate museum-compliant storage facilities to give Kaagwaantaan the opportunity to bring their artifacts home.”
“The next steps (if the sale goes through) is laying out a design, and get it reconstructed,” Stedman said. “The next part of the puzzle, or mosaic, is a discussion at the community and Assembly level. Since it will free up space at the court building, how to reconfigure that building.”
Those wanting to comment on the Stratton Library sale must provide written comments on or before 4 p.m. Thursday. Comments should be submitted to DEED at P.O. Box 110500, Juneau, AK 99811-0500, or by fax to (907) 465-2806 or e-mail at deed.commissioner@alaska.gov.
