Haines Borough drops cheaper Lutak Dock option, leaving bidders only the full rebuild

The Haines Borough administration has dropped a cheaper Lutak Dock option that would have left part of the old dock standing, so bidders will price only the full rebuild within a $21 million design-build budget, according to a Nov. 6 memo to the Planning Commission.

The Lutak Dock is Haines' main dock for fuel and freight, and it has partly collapsed. Forty feet of its face is closed. A crack on its western side grew from 4 inches wide in March 2025 to 6 inches by April 2026.

The administration consulted Mayor Douglas Olerud and the U.S. Maritime Administration, which administers the federal RAISE grant covering $20 million of the roughly $25.6 million project.

The memo says the dropped option "will not be consistent with the Grant" because the grant application rested largely on the dock's safety. "Doing nothing with the crumbling dock (even if expressed as Phase I) is not consistent with the application," it says. When the grant was awarded in 2021, the U.S. Department of Transportation's award list described the project as demolishing the entire dock and installing a partial bulkhead, rip rap and dolphins.

The scrapped option would have skipped demolishing the part of the old dock outside the new bulkhead, skipped replacing it with armor stone revetment, left out three mooring dolphins and closed off the west-end cofferdam cell with new sheet pile.

The option moving forward encloses 100 to 150 feet of existing cofferdam cells in a new bulkhead, demolishes the rest of the dock and replaces it with armor stone revetment. It adds three mooring dolphins, fendering and high-mast lighting while protecting the fuel transfer system.

Engineering firm Moffatt & Nichol is revising the design documents. The draft calls for design work to start by Dec. 31 and construction to be substantially complete by Dec. 31, 2028. The grant's final completion deadline is September 2032.

Manager Alekka Fullerton told the Assembly Oct. 27 she hoped to issue the request for proposals Nov. 18. She called the Dec. 31 start date "a little aggressive" and said mid-January would work, adding that a grant agreement must be in place by September 2027. Assembly member Sargent asked for board review before it goes out to bid.

The Planning Commission reviews the documents Thursday, Nov. 12, at 6:30 pm. The Ports and Harbors Advisory Committee takes them up Monday, Nov. 16, at 10:30 am, with written comments due to the borough clerk by 5 pm Nov. 15. The Assembly takes the matter up again Nov. 18.