Juneau city officials reacted with dismay after the Alaska Mental Health Trust Land Office proposed leasing a waterfront parcel for a parking lot for state workers.
The Alaska Department of Administration canceled the tender last week.
Administration Commissioner Leslie Ridle said there’s a perennial challenge of finding enough parking for state workers in downtown Juneau.
“It’s tight, as you know, in the Willoughby District for Juneau but a couple of things happened that really made the need grow,” Ridle said Wednesday.
Listen to the interview, edited for clarity, here:
The state recently lost about 40 spaces that it had been leasing from the city, Ridle said.
When it moved into the Andrew P. Kashevaroff Building, the state library vacated the State Office Building’s eighth floor. For state workers, that creates more space in that building in downtown Juneau, she said.
“We’re bringing in new employees who had been out in the valley or somewhere else into this parking district so that increases our need as well,” Ridle said.
The agency put out a tender late last year.
The Alaska Mental Health Trust was the only respondent with its 2.8-acre parcel on the water.
“We liked it because it’s close to our State Office Building,” Ridle said. “The problem when it actually did come in was they needed to get a conditional use permit for the parking from the city and it just seemed like that was going to be a long process to me. That would not be able to fulfill our need for some immediate spaces tomorrow. So that’s why we canceled the contract. Let’s say the process took a year; we couldn’t wait that long.”
Ridle will meet with Juneau city officials later this week to find alternatives.
“I do think they have some solutions they can help me with,” she said. “Frankly, one of the leases that we lost was a city lot so I am hoping that we can talk about some future parking there. I am hoping they have some ideas.”
Developers are still urging the Trust Land Office to accepts its offer so they can move forward with a proposed marina and Alaska Ocean Center.
Editor’s note: KTOO’s building sits on land leased from the Alaska Mental Health Trust Authority. KTOO has also applied for and received occasional grants for special reporting projects from the authority.
