SITKA, ALASKA
Visit the Sitka Maritime Heritage Society website.
Maritime Heritage Society president Rebecca Poulson shared her group’s plans in a presentation to the Sitka Chamber of Commerce. She said final costs for the completed project would reach $1.4 million for a “turnkey” boat shop and museum. The Society has raised about a quarter of that, enough to get started.
She said Sean Boily, of Juneau’s Northwind Architects, had created a very spare, efficient design for the structure.
“Our concept is to make it feel as if it never closed. Not like a visitor center, but more like you’re invited to come into this working shop.”
The boathouse is included in a national historic landmark that covers much of the Japonski waterfront. Its formal name is suggestive of the importance of the area at the outbreak of the war: the Sitka Naval Operating Base and U.S. Army Coast Defenses National Historic Landmark.
Poulson said the Army and Navy ultimately serviced a fleet of about sixty vessels at the Japonski boathouse, using some forty shipwrights. The relatively small building was not really adequate to the task. She says plans were underway to build a larger facility when the war ended.
The boathouse entered civilian life as the repair shop for the shore boats that operated between Japonski and Baranof islands, prior to the construction of the O’Connell Bridge. It later was part of Mt. Edgecumbe High School’s vocational program, before the state took over and re-opened the school as an academic institution.
Poulson told the chamber that the Maritime Heritage Society had invested $160,000 in architectural design and stabilizing the structure. The building has been cleaned, painted, and new footings have been poured.
But, she had even better news for the business community.
“It turns out we’ve got – in addition to the money we’ve raised and spent — $325,000 in federal grants we’ve got to use in 2011.”
The Maritime Heritage Society four years ago received $325,000 in a Save Americas Treasures grant. It has spent some of that money on stabilization, and used some to leverage other funding from National Scenic Byways and the Rasmuson Foundation. It is the balance of the Save Americas Treasures funding that must be spent next year.
Poulson said the project has been divided into phases: roof, mechanical and electrical, and a small addition with an accessible entrance and bathrooms.
Poulson said the boathouse work would likely not need outside expertise.
“We’re lucky right now there are a lot of good contractors in town, young guys my age (laughs), and the boathouse is the size of a large house. There’s nothing really specialized except the marine ways, and it’s a historic building. So we hope to have it going out to bid in February, and we’re counting on a local contractor.”
One aspect of the work slightly out of the ordinary – at least for now – will be the installation of a ground source heat pump. The boat shop historically was heated by a central steam plant, long since out of commission. Visitors to site will be glad that the state historic preservation office is allowing heat in the new bathroom addition and museum wing. Poulson said the Society has plans to install the coolant coils for the system on the beach, under the track of the new railway. The project will be funded by a separate grant.
Poulson was joined by Maritime Heritage Society board member Joe D’Arienzo, who told the Chamber that the group had completed negotiations with Delta Western to sublease a portion of the boathouse uplands for a new marine fuel dock. Delta Western shelved plans for a dock when the nationwide recession took hold in 2008. D’Arienzo said the Society anticipated lease revenue of $.06 cents a gallon when the dock is complete. The money will used to fund an executive director’s position. The dock will include a separate float for launching kayaks.
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