Juneau city officials have a plan to turn a city parking lot into housing. Now all they need are some interested developers and Assembly approval.
The city is currently seeking applications from developers interested in turning the North Franklin Parking Lot, located across from the Baranof Hotel and High Tide Tattoo, into a mixed-use building. According to a 2014 appraisal of the land — commissioned by the city’s Lands and Resources Division — turning the parking lot into a mix of commercial and residential space is the “highest and best use” for the land.
Developers looking to take the land, valued at $530,000, off the city’s hands have until Aug. 1 to submit an application describing their how they plan to use the land. Though nobody has turned in an application yet, Juneau’s Chief Housing Officer Scoot Ciambor said there’s a lot of interest in the project.
“I have gotten a lot of phone calls and inquiries, but its hard to say which ones were legit and which ones were just curious,” said Ciambor, who has been leading the parking lot project since he took his current post at the end of March. “We want to definitely make sure we’re putting it in the hands of somebody who can put housing down there.”
The city isn’t telling interested developers what type of housing it would like to see on the site. Whether a developer wants to build affordable housing or high-end condos, Ciambor sees anything as a plus.
This is in keeping with the city’s recently completed Housing Action Plan, which calls city officials to do what they can to prompt housing development of all types, from Section 8 homes to $8 million mansions.
“We have housing needs in a wide range of styles and a wide range of price points,” Ciambor said. “We just need to generate more opportunities and options for residents.”
Lands and Resources Manager Greg Chaney shared Ciambor’s sentiment. The demolition of the twice-burned Gastineau Apartments earlier this year left more than just a hole in the downtown cityscape. The apartments used to house dozens of residents, and so far nothing has been done to replace the lost units.
Losing housing units with no plan to replace them hinders downtown revitalization efforts, Chaney said. The North Franklin Parking Lot project has the potential to turn that around, but it isn’t without its complications.
“It would be very helpful to have more dwelling units downtown to replace the units that were lost,” Chaney said. “That would help the vitality of downtown, but parking is also very important, so it’s a tough balance.”
Once the city has all of the developer applications Aug. 1, the dominoes in the city governing process will start to fall. City staffers will evaluate the proposals and make a recommendation for a negotiated sale to the Lands Committee, which will in turn make a recommendation to the Planning Commission, which will ultimately make a recommendation to the Assembly.
It will likely be months before the Assembly ever takes this matter up for consideration, but Chaney has a feeling that parking will be a big part of the discussion once the project does make its way into City Hall. The city bought the North Franklin Parking Lot 13 years ago. Ever since, it has maintained the lot of 27 spaces.
“There’s this struggle between providing housing and providing parking,” Chaney said. “It helps to have parking for people to visit restaurants and shops downtown, but it also helps to have people living downtown, so it’s a debate that goes on forever.”
Likely as it is to be a part of any Assembly discussion, the parking debate may not go on forever in this case. Evelyn Rousso, chairman of the Downtown Business Association Infrastructure Committee and partner at NorthWind Architects, said that downtown revitalization is key for downtown business to succeed. And, like Chaney, she believes the only way to make a more vital downtown is to increase downtown housing.
“We need parking to service our businesses, but the reality is that we won’t have any room for growth if we don’t have more housing downtown,” she said. “I don’t think you can wipe out all of that parking and not replace any of it, but parking will work itself out. It’s important not to stand in the way of someone who wants to build housing in downtown.”
•Contact reporter Sam DeGrave at 523-2279 or at sam.degrave@juneauempire.com.
