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Downtown’s historic district takes a new shape as the city changes the designation of land once known as the ‘pit’ to make room for Sealaska Heritage Institute’s modern cultural and heritage center.
The City and Borough of Juneau Assembly introduced Ordinance 2013-01 at its meeting on Jan. 7. The ordinance would revise the city’s Downtown Historic District Map to remove the parcel SHI plans to use to build its Walter Soboleff Center. The parcel is bounded by City Hall on Municipal Way, Seward Street and the Sealaska Plaza, Front Street and Shattuck Way.
Juneau’s Historic Resources Advisory Committee recommended at its Dec. 19 meeting that the city remove the entire block from the historic district except a five-foot section on Front Street facing the Gross 20th Century Theater and Juneau Drug. Beyond the five-foot setback, SHI can build to Juneau’s Mixed Use District standards.
Juneau’s Planning Commission met Jan. 8 and adopted the historic advisory committee’s recommendations. Commissioners were split on whether to move the recommendation on to the Assembly. The divide was over whether to annex the entire parcel or leave five feet within the district.
If the ordinance is adopted, SHI would not need to design and build its heritage center to conform to Historic District standards. However, if the commission and historic advisory committee recommendation is also adopted, five feet of the building front would need to meet historic standards.
“The façade of any building on the block would look about the same height as all of the buildings around it,” Greg Cheney CBJ senior planner said. “The initial feel for the pedestrian is similar to the rest of the block.”
Cheney said CBJ staff decided to remove the parcel from the historic district instead of making provisions to allow for modern building.
Although Sealaska Heritage institute has not released detailed specifications for the cultural center, depictions show a modern, multi-story facilities with Alaska Native art motif and pedestrian walkway coverage.
The Assembly is scheduled to take up Ordinance 2013-01 at the next assembly meeting on Jan. 28.
• Contact reporter Russell Stigall at 523-2276 or at russell.stigall@juneauempire.com.
Comments (35)
Add commentHopefully a first draft!
needs more work.
Public comment: Ordinance 2013-01 Change in Historic District
Monday, January 28, 2013, 7 p.m., Regular Assembly Meeting, Assembly Chambers
Borough_Assembly@ci.juneau.ak.us
Please send your comments to the Assembly directly on this issue. Can't guarantee they will read the Empire comments...
Willoughby District
The CBJ Willoughby District Cultural Campus would be more appropriate for this idea. Keep the historical district intact. This is right at the heart of the historical district.
historic district
@ jla5134-- keep the historical district in tact? I for one fundamentally disagree here. As a community, we should not continue to celebrate and cherish a timeperiod that at one point kept Native people out of the downtown area.
We have all seen pictures of the signs which once hung prominently in the windows of these shops just 50 years ago. To remove the signs but perpetuate the underlying perception is not in our communities best interests.
Althought there are probably components I would change if it were my house, I applaud the efforts and look forward to stopping by.
@Good and @swimmergirl
I don't have any good answers to your questions without more research. I agree with @jla that anyone who feels strongly should send an email to borough_assembly@ci.juneau.ak.us. They do not necessarily read all the blogs. The smart ones avoid them :-).
It's difficult to argue that a building inspired by the native long house is not historically worthy of space in our town. It's equally hard to see how a building adjacent to the Sealaska Building can't be in harmony with that architecture.
If anyone is strongly opposed to this project, you should think about how you will argue that the Assembly should force the owners of property to build something they do not want or force them to sell or trade the land. Before you serve on the Assembly, you might think they run the City. But they don't. They represent the rest of us to make sure that the paid staff follows the rules we have put in place. For the most part, they try not to get in the way of individual property owners who have an idea of what they want to do with their resources. If this project was in the center of the historical district, the outcome would have been less certain and SHI would have been less willing to take the pit from its previous owner. Housing would be great, but no one who has the money to buy that space was interested in buying it for that purpose. There was plenty of time for other bidders to come forward.