Kawerak says new buildings in five Bering Strait villages are nearly complete

New multipurpose buildings in Teller, Elim, Shaktoolik, Gambell and Shishmaref are nearly finished after this summer's construction season, Kawerak Inc., the Bering Strait regional nonprofit, said Monday. The buildings were paid for with $12 million in federal COVID-19 relief money.

Each is a modular building of about 1,000 square feet with three offices, a kitchen, two bathrooms and a mechanical room. Kawerak says they give each village "a central location to house and coordinate pandemic relief, if the need were to arise again in the future." They are designed so a side can be added later for a larger gathering space, but that would take more money, which Kawerak says it doesn't yet have.

Teller's building came down the Nome-Teller Highway in two halves and was joined on site. Crews hooked it up to power, heat, a 2,000-gallon fuel tank, a sewage treatment system and three insulated 2,500-gallon water tanks.

In Gambell, on St. Lawrence Island, the building sits next to the Presbyterian Church, up the road from the school, and will hold offices for the Tribe. "We want to thank Kawerak and everybody that's taken part in getting this done," said Gambell Tribal Coordinator Cheryl Lowery.

Kawerak says the projects were coordinated with each village's Tribe, city and Native corporation. "It's been a bit of a pressure cooker," said Cheri McConnell, senior vice president of Kawerak's infrastructure division, who said the projects "really came together over a short timeline."

Kawerak's release calls the money CARES grant funding. The U.S. Treasury Department lists the $12 million Kawerak project under Alaska's share of the Capital Projects Fund, a COVID-19 relief program created by the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act. Money from that fund must be spent by Dec. 31, 2026, according to Treasury. Kawerak says it developed the grant with Rep. Neal Foster and Sen. Donny Olson.

Each village will set a date for an opening celebration in the coming months, Kawerak says.