Assembly to weigh a helipad for military helicopters at the Port of Alaska

The Anchorage Assembly will decide Wednesday whether to build a helipad at the Don Young Port of Alaska so military helicopters can deploy through the port.

The Department of Defense has designated the port a commercial strategic seaport, and it handles most of the consumer goods, construction materials, food and fuel that come into Alaska.

A January port briefing said the helipad would relieve space constraints when the military mobilizes. It warned that the area the military uses to stage equipment would become very congested once construction on the port's new Cargo Terminal 1 began in March.

The pad would sit in the port's North Extension, on newly stabilized ground. The briefing's site plan shows a pad 100 feet by 100 feet, designated for Army and Air Force operations. It would be paved and built to Defense Department heliport standards, with a new access road, a retaining wall and a windsock.

Mayor Suzanne LaFrance is recommending the Assembly hire Mass Excavation Inc., known as Mass X, to design and build it for up to $3.9 million, with authority to spend up to about $392,000 more if the work changes, according to the Assembly memo. A 2022 federal port infrastructure grant from the U.S. Maritime Administration would pay for it.

The port's modernization advisory board backed the helipad unanimously last December. Mass X scored highest of three companies that bid on the job. Design would start this year, and construction is scheduled to wrap up by September 2027.