FAA awards Sitka $2 million for seaplane base land and final design

Sitka's planned replacement seaplane base now has federal money for its next two steps: buying the land and finishing the drawings. The Federal Aviation Administration awarded the City and Borough of Sitka $750,636 for Phase 1, land acquisition, and $1,251,867 for Phase 2, which carries the design from 65 percent to final. Both awards run from Sept. 16, 2026, through Sept. 15, 2030. Sitka adds a 5 percent match, $39,507.16 on Phase 1 and $65,887.74 on Phase 2, the award records show.

Both records describe a new seaplane base meeting current FAA design standards, classed "basic," the agency's category for facilities supporting emergency response, air ambulance and personal flying.

The project replaces a facility the city has described as past its useful life. At a City of Sitka floatplane base project update presentation, Public Works Director Michael Harmon said the existing base is "woefully undersized for the needs that are projected in the business case studies that have been done," adding that emergency repairs made to keep it in service "will soon be coming to the end of their design life." At that same presentation, reporting on the 35 percent milestone, Harmon put the construction estimate at $34 million and the city's share of it at over $2 million.

The FAA's 2025-2029 National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems, the list that makes a facility eligible for federal airport money, carries a five-year development estimate of $36,677,011 for the base and lists Sitka Rocky Gutierrez Airport separately. The new seaplane base drew $1,594,875 in the FAA's May 12, 2026, Airport Improvement Program round. With this month's two awards, federal money identified for the base comes to about $3.6 million.

Design and land are now funded. Construction money is not.