Tag: tourism

Categories
Featured Juneau News Juneau Local Ketchikan Local News Feeds Sitka Local

Juneau Assembly reviews Goldbelt’s West Douglas cruise port plan

Rendering of proposed Welcome Center provided by Golbelt.

NOTN- The Juneau Assembly held a Committee of the Whole meeting Monday night and among a number of meaty topics, reviewed Goldbelt Inc.’s proposal to develop a large-scale cruise ship facility and supporting infrastructure on West Douglas.

“we’re still just getting in more information on the project.” Said Deputy Mayor Greg Smith, “We want to hear more about master planning back there, because it’s potentially significant development, there’s hundreds of acres of what we believe to be much better developable land for housing.”

Mayor Beth Weldon said the proposed project, still in its early stages, would include extending North Douglas Road, building an onshore terminal and parking area, wastewater treatment facilities, a small boat harbor, and two cruise ship berths.

The project, nicknamed “Goldbelt Aaní” has no officially announced opening date.

According to Goldbelt, Goldbelt Aaní, will highlight Lingít culture and boost the city’s economy.

The Assembly also discussed updating the West Douglas master plan, which will help guide long-term development on the island.

“We’d like authorization to start doing some master planning.” said Smith, “The assembly said, Yes, bring in some more information about what Master Planning might look like, how much it might cost, try to work in collaboration with Goldbelt, should they want to.”

The Master plan along with Goldbelt’s proposed cruise port, involves potentially developing hundreds of acres of land, with a critical focus from the city on establishing a second crossing to enable future development.

“We felt that there should be master planning in relation to their project. Goldbelt doesn’t feel like there should be.” said Smith, “We have to figure things out, you know, if they want to use utilities out there, or emergency services and other city services like that.”

According to the city, public outreach and public comment will be a big part of the master plan process, which will proceed as Goldbelt prepares to submit a conditional use permit.

Categories
Featured Juneau News Juneau Local Ketchikan Local News Feeds Sitka Local

City considers legislative passenger limits and new tourism task Force

NOTN- The Juneau Assembly is considering new ways to manage the city’s visitor industry, which saw an increase this summer, including the possibility of formal passenger limits on cruise ship arrivals.

At Monday night’s Committee of the Whole meeting, officials discussed formalizing mooring agreements for docks and potentially advancing caps on visitor numbers, moving beyond current memorandums of agreement with the industry and making it official legislation.

“We will be looking at supporting the community’s ability to assess and manage growth.” Mayor Beth Weldon said Monday morning.

Mayor Weldon also said the Assembly introduced a new Visitor Industry Task Force that will pick up where the previous group left off.

“The task force will basically take up where the last one dropped off, and also continue to look at managing community impacts with infrastructure. And if that’s working well or not.” she said, noting that whale-watching will be a particular focus.

More than 1.7 million cruise visitors arrived in Juneau this season, according to city data.

Categories
Featured Juneau News Juneau Local Ketchikan Local News Feeds Sitka Local

Advocates work on cleaner cruise ship fuels following record tourism year

A cruise ship emerges from a fog bank Monday, Aug. 28, 2023, in Juneau. (Photo by James Brooks/Alaska Beacon)

NOTN- As Alaska wraps up another strong cruise season with over 3 million visitors to the state, Juneau Sen. Jesse Kiehl says work is ongoing to reduce environmental impacts from visiting ships, including discussions about transitioning to cleaner fuels.

Kiehl said Juneau’s port saw about 1.7 million cruise visitors this year, a slight increase from 2024, according to industry data presented at the Alaska Travel Industry Association conference.

Kiehl, who has long advocated for environmental safety in the visitor industry, said he’s in talks about transitioning from scrubber systems, which trap air pollutants but can discharge waste into the ocean, to cleaner-burning fuels.

“It’s got a price tag, and some of the lines are talking to me about what that costs and what the impact would be, and some are keeping that a trade secret, which makes it a little harder to make a good, rational policy decision.” Said Kiehl.

Kiehl said he has no new policies, proposals or bills to announce, but attended a panel hosted by the Southeast Conservation Council, and says, “The best outcome, is to have a visitor industry that’s good for the economy but doesn’t have those impacts on the environment. We’re trying to find the best pathway to get there.”

According to SEACC, discharge from scrubber systems can be toxic to marine life even at very low concentrations.

Aaron Brakel of SEACC writes, “While scrubbers may seem beneficial — removing pollution from the air —  they allow ships to continue burning dirty fuel, transferring those pollutants to the millions of gallons of acidic, polluted wastewater discharged into our living marine waters daily.”

Categories
Featured Juneau News Juneau Local Ketchikan Local News Feeds Sitka Local

Juneau Mayor shares tourism lessons with Greenland delegation as cruise season closes

NOTN- As Juneau wraps up another long cruise ship season, Mayor Beth Weldon says the city recently hosted a delegation from Greenland seeking advice on how to develop its own cruise tourism industry.

The delegation met with Juneau officials this week to learn from the capital city’s experience as one of Alaska’s busiest cruise ports.

“Population 58,000 in their whole country, it was a pleasure to talk to them. ” Weldon said, “They are looking at building a couple of docks, and so they’re going around talking to people and hearing what we have to say. So one of the questions is, what have you learned? So some of the things we shared were, control your growth, make sure you bring the community along, make sure you know what’s sacred to the community so you don’t screw that part up.”

Weldon said she also emphasized the importance of maintaining local identity within the tourism economy. “We do well with local people running excursions, and most of our stores are almost all locally owned,” she said. “Instead of just having some place where the cruise ships own everything, or another entity owns everything. But this way, the benefits from the tourism industry certainly helped the locals.”

The conversation came as Juneau’s 2025 cruise season came to a close with the arrival of the final ship on Tuesday afternoon. Weldon said the season provided a welcome boost to the economy, but added that residents are also ready for a little breathing room.

Categories
Featured Juneau News Juneau Local Ketchikan Local News Feeds Sitka Local

“If they are big, they aren’t going to change.” Mayor Weldon speaks on ballot proposition results

Election materials are seen at the Alaska Division of Elections headquarters in Juneau. (Photo by James Brooks/Alaska Beacon)

NOTN- Juneau Mayor Beth Weldon says city officials are already preparing for possible spending cuts following Tuesday’s municipal election, where early results show voters favoring two tax-limiting propositions that could significantly reduce city revenue and potentially the cost of living for residents.

“If you’re looking at our website to see the election results, just hit the tab the button that says election, and then you’ll see preliminary results.” Said Weldon, “Up at the top it says 21% Well, that’s 21% of our registered voters. So typically we end up with somewhere between 9 to 10%, this is a little bit of a bigger ballot, so we might get as much as 12,000 votes. So it’s not 21% of the vote. I would say it’s somewhere between 40 to 50%.”

Speaking Wednesday morning, Weldon said due to high voter turnout, preliminary numbers for Ballot propositions 1 through 3 won’t likely change.

“Ballot Proposition 2, taking the sales tax off food, that’s not going to change. The seasonal sales tax is not going to change. Proposition 1 has a possibility of changing, but is likely going to stay that way.” Weldon Said.

She noted that while full election results won’t be certified until mid-October, most races appear decided. Only the tight Assembly District 2 race between incumbent Wade Bryson and challenger Nathaniel “Nano” Brooks, separated by three votes in preliminary results on Wednesday remains too close to call.

Weldon said the city had anticipated either outcome and began planning for both scenarios before the election. “We’ll just evaluate and figure out where we can fill the hole with cutting services a bit and other things, the biggest hit to the budget was taking sales tax off food without filling that hole. So that’s, you know, somewhere around $8 million.” Weldon said, “It’s easy to cut $8 million one time, but it’s a little more difficult to cut it year after year after year. But we’ll just go back to work and our finance means will be pretty interesting.”She said.

The City and Borough of Juneau’s next update on unofficial election results is expected Friday. Certification is scheduled later this month.

Categories
Featured Juneau News Juneau Local Ketchikan Local News Feeds Sitka Local

A Texas man on a cruise to Alaska is dead after falling from a trail during a hike, authorities say

FILE – Clouds and fog hang in the area near and along Mount Roberts trail on Sept. 22, 2012, in Juneau, Alaska. (AP Photo/Becky Bohrer, File)

AP- One man is dead and another injured after falling from a trail in the mountains above downtown Juneau, authorities said. Both men were cruise ship passengers who were visiting Alaska’s capital city.

Alaska State Troopers said they were notified late Tuesday about a search and rescue involving two men who had fallen from a trail and slid down the mountainside. One of the men was found with minor injuries. The body of the other man, a 36-year-old from Texas, was located by drones farther down the mountain, according to troopers, who said he died from injuries sustained in the fall.

One of the men had called 911 for help, troopers’ spokesperson Tess Williams said by email. She said the men had mistakenly followed a path that was not the actual trail and is in the vicinity of a tram. The tram shuttles people between the downtown area where cruise ships dock and a developed site about 1,800 feet (548.6 meters) up a mountainside; it’s popular with cruise passengers. The Mount Roberts trail passes through that area and heads up toward a ridgeline and peaks that tower over downtown.

Williams said at the time of the incident it was dark with dense fog and periods of light rain. She said the ground was soggy and wet, and conditions off trail were slick.

In July, another cruise passenger, a Kentucky woman, also was found dead in the mountains above downtown Juneau. Authorities had initiated a search for her after she did not return to her cruise ship following a hike.

Categories
Featured Juneau News Juneau Local Ketchikan Local Music News Feeds Sitka Local

Cruise fees could help connect more of Juneau’s waterfront Seawalk

NOTN- Juneau Assembly and Finance Committee officials say extending the downtown Seawalk remains a top community priority, and work is underway to prepare for the next phase of construction using cruise ship passenger fees.

At a work session this week, assembly members heard updates on progress toward connecting more of the waterfront walkway.

“The Sea walk has been a community priority as long as I’ve been on the assembly, anytime we do planning conversations with the community, that always comes up as a top priority, because it’s something that benefits our visitors, but our residents also use our sea walk a lot as well.” Said Christine Woll, head of the Finance Committee, “The ultimate goal is to connect the whole thing, and so we’ve been slowly negotiating leases along the water.”

Woll noted that leases are being negotiated along sections of the waterfront, including near the Huna Totem dock project, which will add its own segment of the walkway.

Deputy City manager Robert Barr says the construction of the Sea walk won’t interrupt cruise docking, however, they will be working closely with businesses along the waterfront that may see disruptions through construction in the future, like Crowley Fuels.

He said the Franklin to AJ dock connection is the last connection on the far side and will be designed in earnest soon. “That’s a long awaited extension, and it’s a long extension too.” Barr said, “It’ll really extend the sea walk all the way down to our farthest dock, I know a lot of community really enjoys that walk, and it’s a really pleasant waterside walk during the day for people that live and work downtown.”

No decisions were made this week, but Woll said the assembly is preparing to allocate funds to start building new portions of the Seawalk in coming years.

“It costs a lot of money to build sea walk, but because we have those passenger fees, we can use those, whether that’s a revenue bond or we’ve been saving that money every year for this, to get to this point where we’ve got those leases negotiated, and we can actually start building.” 

News of the North
Flood Watch
Weather
Salmon Derby
Podcasts
Stations
Cruise Schedule
Best of  Juneau
Contests

Opinion & Request

Capital Chat
Problem Corner
Community Matters
Artist Submissions