During the summer months, Lincoln Street is a tourist hotspot, and as the number of visitors to Sitka has grown, so have community frustrations. (KCAW/James)
The Sitka Assembly is considering fast-tracking a plan to upgrade Sitka’s downtown thoroughfare, but how to pay for it is still a big question.
The original project to repave Lincoln Street was delayed in 2018. Now its scope has expanded to include water, wastewater and utility work, at a cost of about $15.5 million, according to city staff.
At a work session Thursday evening (7-17-25), Finance Director Brooke Volschenk said the city has already bookmarked just over $6.5 million towards the renovation.
“So we’re short just shy of $9 million across all funds,” she said.
One option proposed Thursday was to put money already allocated to repair the local senior center towards the Lincoln Street project, but several assembly members didn’t find the idea appealing.
Assembly member Kevin Mosher said they all want the renovation to be expedited, but he wants to make sure it doesn’t happen at the expense of projects that are more pressing.
“Before we move forward with moving Lincoln Street up, I think it would be wise of us to maybe meet at another time when the staff has had chance to really go over [it] and show us what we would be sacrificing, because I don’t want a sewer or water line to bust because we wanted Lincoln Street moved up,” Mosher said.
During the summer months, the street is a tourist hotspot, and as the number of visitors to Sitka has grown, so have community frustrations.
Mayor Steven Eisenbeisz said Lincoln Street continues to be a point of congestion and a point of anxiety among residents, and deserves more time and resources. He said the assembly has indicated in the past that it will do all it can to ease the burden of tourism on the community.
“Doing right by that street, I think can help ease some of the concerns,” he said.
He said the city should start by engaging community members and asking what they want.
“The vision is going to drive the scope and scale, and then we’ll find out really how short we are,” Eisenbeisz said. “Because I have a feeling as a community, we’re going to want quite a bit out of a very short section of street, and not necessarily have the funding or the opportunity to do it all.”
Ultimately, city staff agreed to host a community discussion on the project, look at the possibility of fast-tracking it – but not at the expense of other projects – and also look into other financing options that can fill the funding gap.
