The FAA is paying $4.3 million to design a radar tower near Sitka

The FAA is paying $4.3 million for drawings of a radar tower on an island 13 miles south of Sitka, with the option to have the same company build it.

The award went to Kobo Utility Construction Corp., a family-owned heavy electrical utility contractor based in Sandwich, Massachusetts. The agency set the work aside for small businesses and received three bids. The contract runs through the end of 2027.

The tower would house a beacon interrogator, the half of radar surveillance that prompts an aircraft's transponder to report back who it is, how high it is flying, how fast and in what direction.

Biorka Island has been under reconstruction for five years. The FAA has replaced the crew quarters for $3.2 million, run a fuel cargo line for $1.4 million, drilled a well for $551,276, and paid a firm $220,919 to survey the ground where the beacon would sit, work that finished in May 2025. A separate contract, worth $327,909 and running through March 2027, covers investigating and removing another tower site on the island.

What this contract buys is design. Whether the FAA exercises the option to build, and when, the award record does not say, and it carries no price for that phase.