Sitka could soon be home to a second U.S. Coast Guard cutter. Cutters conduct a wide range of tasks for the military branch, from maritime law enforcement to search and rescue to national defense and fisheries patrol.
Earlier this month, the Coast Guard awarded a multi-million-dollar contract to a national contracting company to design and construct new homeport facilities to support a new vessel in Sitka.
The Coast Guard Facilities Design and Construction Center awarded the $50.475 million contract to the Whiting-Turner Contracting Company on Aug. 14.
“This project is an effort to homeport a new fast response cutter in Sitka, Alaska, but also provide support to the existing 225-foot seagoing buoy tender, the Kukui,” said LCDR Tyler Vieira, a construction project manager with the center.
Vieira said the money will go towards construction of a floating pier to support the arrival of the fast response cutter Douglas Denman, which was commissioned in 2022 and is currently at port in Ketchikan.
“[The Douglas Denman] supports the Coast Guard’s missions of search and rescue, national defense, ports and waterway security, coastal security, drug and migrant interdiction, and then obviously up here, very importantly, fisheries patrol,” he said.
The award will also help improve facilities for the cutter Kukui, which is already homeported in the island community. Vieira said the Coast Guard acquired a parcel of land next to its current site from the city to do this construction.
“We’re obviously very excited to have the opportunity to do this work in Sitka,” he said. “And we’re very thankful for the partnerships that we had with the tribe in Sitka and the city to get this project in place and going.”
Vieira said upgrading the facilities to accommodate the fast response cutter will allow them to better patrol Southeast Alaska.
Once ported, he said they expect about 22 new Coast Guardsmen will be stationed in Sitka.
Construction is expected to begin summer of 2026 and be completed in 2028.
