Juneau Assembly to vote on negotiating sales of West Juneau lot and downtown parking strip

The Juneau Assembly will decide Monday, Nov. 16, whether City Manager Katie Koester may negotiate two sales of city land: a West Juneau parcel where a developer plans 10 more housing units, and a downtown parking strip that an Assembly committee backed selling over staff's objection.

Koester recommends going ahead with the first and denying the second. A vote to negotiate is not a sale. Any sale would still need a separate ordinance.

Douglas Island Development LLC wants about 0.44 acres of vacant city land just past the end of John Street. The company plans 18 multifamily units on its land and says the city piece would hold 10 more. Its application cites housing demand and recent inquiries from the U.S. Coast Guard about more housing for its enlisted members and their families.

The city land has no public road frontage, so access to David Street would run through the company's property. For that reason, Lands and Resources Manager Dan Bleidorn wrote, the city should not seek competing bids. The company would pay fair market value plus all subdivision and recording costs.

The Lands, Housing and Economic Development Committee backed the sale unanimously Jan. 26, and the Planning Commission recommended it unanimously Aug. 25.

Downtown, Alexander Hoke wants to buy a 20-by-50-foot city lot of about 979 square feet just north of Second Street. It is signed as public permit parking inside the city's North Franklin lot. Hoke owns two neighboring properties. In letters to Bleidorn this year, he wrote that his buildings have no off-street parking and that maintaining one home's wall means putting ladders and scaffolding on city land, a need he called "continual."

Bleidorn recommended denial in an Oct. 30 memo. The lot is part of the North Franklin Reconstruction Project, now under construction, which would add two public hourly spaces there. Selling it "would require redesigning a project already out for construction and would eliminate two public parking spaces in the downtown core," he wrote.

The lot is also part of the larger Second and Franklin site. On May 18 the Assembly agreed unanimously to negotiate selling that site to Saldonett LLC, which proposes 55 to 60 apartments and 27 parking spaces. Bleidorn wrote that a separate sale would cut the larger site's development capacity.

The committee first took up Hoke's request Aug. 31, when Paul Kelly moved to recommend denial. Alicia Hughes-Skandijs, then the committee chair, objected so members could learn more about the larger project, and the item was postponed. On Nov. 2, according to the Assembly agenda, the committee recommended approval.

Saldonett's application goes to the Planning Commission in January 2027.