Juneau harbor committee weighs $365,000 design contract for North Douglas launch ramp

Juneau's Docks & Harbors Operations & Planning Committee takes up a $365,000 engineering contract with PND Engineers for the North Douglas Launch Ramp Expansion at 5 pm Wednesday. The contract includes a study of whether Kensington Mine waste rock could serve as fill for the ramp.

The committee will also consider moving $750,000 from the Docks Enterprise Fund balance to the project. Both items are recommendations, and the committee's agenda allows public comment on each. City records list the full expansion as a future need of about $50 million.

PND was one of three firms, along with HDR and DOWL, that submitted design proposals, Port Director Carl Uchytil told the committee in September. PND's proposal outlines five tasks. Onshore drilling and soil testing is the largest at $150,000, followed by concept design and public meetings at $100,000 and the waste rock study at $50,000. Coastal analysis and modeling would cost $40,000, and surveying would cost $25,000.

The waste rock study would look at loading rock at the mine's barge ramp, barging it to North Douglas and testing it, including environmental tests developed with input from regulators. The contract does not cover permit applications.

PND would also hold three public meetings. The first would ask who the ramp should serve, including whether it should handle passenger-for-hire vessels and tour buses. After that first meeting, PND would use the public input to develop at least three concept alternatives for the ramp.

Uchytil raised the commercial-use question in a memo to the board, saying staff will evaluate a commercial loading zone at the site. "A rigorous engineering review along with community input may warrant commercial charter use at this facility," he wrote. He listed possible benefits: fewer charter vessels crowding Statter Harbor, less wake damage to Auke Bay waterfront property owners and a way to help pay for the expansion.

The Docks Enterprise Fund held nearly $4 million at the end of fiscal 2026, according to the memo. The ramp project has drawn $1.225 million so far, all from the Harbors Enterprise Fund balance, which Alaska News reported Aug. 19 was near its lowest point ever.

Ramp crowding has come up before. At a city listening session on North and West Douglas in September 2025, North Douglas business owner Danielle Brown Farrell said five or six boats often line up to use the launch.

Any recommendations the committee approves would go next to the Docks & Harbors Board.