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

Sitka is planning to replace its floatplane base, and the city now has federal money to buy the land and finish the drawings, but not to build it.

The Federal Aviation Administration awarded the City and Borough of Sitka about $750,000 to acquire the land and $1.25 million to carry the design from 65 percent to final, with the city adding a 5 percent match to each. Counting an earlier award this spring, federal money identified for the project comes to about $3.6 million.

Construction is the expensive part. At a project update, Public Works Director Michael Harmon put the construction estimate at $34 million, with the city's share more than $2 million. That money has not been identified.

Harmon has described the existing base as "woefully undersized for the needs that are projected in the business case studies that have been done," and said the emergency repairs made to keep it in service "will soon be coming to the end of their design life."

The replacement would be built to current FAA design standards in what the agency calls the basic category, covering facilities that serve emergency response, air ambulance and personal flying. The federal plan that makes the base eligible for airport money carries a five-year development estimate of about $36.7 million.

The two awards run through September 2030.