Daily Sitka Sentinel

Chamber Told: Industrial Park Keeping Busy

By TOM HESSE

Sentinel Staff Writer

The Gary Paxton Industrial Park is awash in ideas, but how many of those will come to fruition remains anyone’s guess. 

Garry White, executive director of the Sitka Economic Development Association and manager of the industrial park, spoke to the Chamber of Commerce Wednesday about Sitka’s business climate.

Garry White speaks Wednesday at the Chamber of Commerce.  (Sentinel Photo by James Poulson)

    One of Sitka’s top assets that SEDA is trying to market is the industrial park, which the city took over following the closure of the Alaska Pulp Corp. mill. White said a lot of progress has been made in the years since APC granted the property to the city. 

“When that was a mill site we had about 400 people out there. In the summertime now we’ve got 480,” White said. 

The bulk of those are seasonal employees of Silver Bay Seafoods, which White said is the “anchor tenant” of the park and the largest property taxpayer in Sitka. The company’s capital investment in the area is north of $10 million. 

Getting the undeveloped areas to be as successful as Silver Bay raises other challenges, however. Outside of the fishing season, employment at the park drops below 100, and many other ventures have struggled to get off the ground. The water bottling plant is under its fourth set of owners. 

“Bottling in Sitka, Alaska, is a tough business, especially when you’re competing with Coke, Pepsi and Dasani,” White said. 

But that doesn’t mean interest has waned. Multiple groups from China have visited the park looking to develop their own bottling operations, leading the industrial park directors to look into expanding the park’s area of developable land. Another company, iWater, currently is leasing a central part of the park with hopes of developing its own water bottling, but its lease will end in October unless it meets a number of contract benchmarks. 

Another water bottling enterprise at the park is Alaska Bulk Water, which aims to purchase water in bulk for export in shipload quantities.

Alaska Bulk Water Inc. has previously paid $1.35 million for the rights to ship Blue Lake water, but the $1 million payment to add three years to the deal hasn’t been received yet. The original due date was Dec. 8 and a 45-day grace period elapsed last month. 

“What we’ve done is we’ve told them we’ll give you a 30-day extension while we try to get the board together to discuss this,” White said. He has confidence in ABWI, he said, but observed that the bulk water industry is challenging. 

“In my opinion, they’ve been very honest with us. They’re trying to get that going,” he said. 

The company has made a number of infrastructure improvements at the park, and White said it is far ahead of a lot of other businesses trying to get bulk water started. 

“It’s very speculative. I get a lot of phone calls from people who have no idea what they’re doing,” he said. 

If bulk water ever becomes a viable option, White said, it could mean a lot of money to Sitka. Around 9.5 billion gallons of Blue Lake water is available for shipping at the purchase price of 1 cent per gallon. 

“If we’re ever able to leverage Blue Lake and earn, potentially, $2.3 million, why can’t we go to Green Lake?” White said. 

In recent meetings the GPIP board instructed staff to check with state agencies about the potential of getting water rights to Green Lake similar to those they have at Blue Lake. 

As for economic development outside of the park, White said, SEDA’s main focuses are on housing and finding ways to better use Sitka’s resources. One of the impediments to bringing more industry to Sitka, White said, has been the cost of electricity following the dam expansion. 

Sitka now has more power available to users, but it comes at a cost. 

“I’m already losing potential businesses to other communities. When you start with 17 cents per kilowatt hour you start looking at other communities that are at 8,” he said. 

White is also the president of Southeast Conference, which works on economic development for the entire region. Right now the focus is on ferry service. He said the group is pushing to have the marine highway managed by an empowered board, and to start looking to the future. 

“For the life of me I can’t figure out why they don’t have a strategic plan,” he said.