Northwest Arctic Borough seeks designs for heated public safety storage in five villages

Five Northwest Arctic villages are a step closer to heated buildings for fire, search and rescue and Village Public Safety Officer equipment.

The Northwest Arctic Borough on Friday asked architecture and engineering firms to design warm storage buildings in Selawik, Noorvik, Deering, Noatak and Kivalina, according to a request for proposals.

The buildings "will protect critical equipment from extreme weather conditions, extend equipment service life, and improve emergency response capability in remote communities," the borough's VPSO coordinator, Darrell Hildebrand, and Regional Public Safety Officer Chris Hatch wrote in a March report.

Each would be 27 by 42 feet, with a 12-by-16-foot garage door and a roof built to hold 100 pounds of snow per square foot. The foundations would sit above ground, built from materials that have to be flown in.

The borough has been working on the project since at least January, when its Assembly approved a ground lease with the City of Deering for that village's building. By March, sites had been secured in all five villages and environmental review was done, according to a report to the borough Assembly. The Alaska Municipal League, which was managing the project, was working with the U.S. Department of Agriculture to start drawing on federal grant money.

The borough also lists two state grants tied to the work: $900,000 for warm storage in Noorvik and $1.5 million for shelter cabins and a public safety building. As of June 30, nothing had been spent from either, according to the borough's grants summary.

In Selawik, the gravel pad meant for the building was holding wind turbine material that hadn't been shipped back out, according to a July report on the village's energy project.

The request says the work should be substantially complete by March 2027, and the borough Assembly will award the contract. The request and borough records don't say what the buildings will cost in total or when construction would start.