Plans for a cruise ship port on the west side of Douglas Island with two floating docking berths and “a recreated 1800s Alaska Native Tlingit village” were publicly announced Wednesday by Goldbelt Inc. and Royal Caribbean Group, to the surprise and dismay of city officials who said being left out of discussions about the proposal is at odds with the collaborative approach taken in recent years with the cruise industry.
Goldbelt owns about 1,700 acres between Outer Point and Point Hilda on Douglas Island, and the port is meant to be both a site emphasizing the area’s Tlingit history and starting point for people to take various shore tours while avoiding being part of the congestion downtown, Goldbelt President and CEO McHugh Pierre said in an interview Wednesday morning.
“We want to build employees housing, we want to remove congestion and traffic from the streets and from downtown, and help make it just an overall better experience for us who live there, but also for our visitors,” he said. “And we think that developing this out and away from everybody, some of the other concepts that are going to be included are helipads right there so people can come and go right from that location, whale-watching docks, floatplane docks, all of those things built in that area so we remove a lot of traffic from the streets.”
The port would also be in relatively close proximity to the city-owned Eaglecrest Ski Area, where Goldbelt has invested $10 million for the installation of a gondola that seeks to make large-scale year-round tourism at the resort possible. The urban Alaska Native corporation would be the provider of such tours during the cruise season and potentially other times of the year.
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A press release issued by Goldbelt on Wednesday states “the facility is projected for completion during the 2027 Alaska cruise season,” but Pierre said that timeline is “if everything worked, I mean, absolutely perfectly.” He said at this point many specifics of the project — such as the size and features of the recreated village, and the size of ships the berths would be designed to accommodate — are unknown.
City officials question proposed dock’s impact on voluntary limits
The announcement is disappointing in the wake of efforts the City and Borough of Juneau is making with the cruise industry that seeks to accommodate what has been a record level of tourism the past two years while trying to reduce the impacts on residents, said Deputy City Manager Robert Barr in an interview Wednesday morning.
“I would go so far as to say that it is disappointing that Royal Caribbean — and I placed most of this on them — it is disappointing that Royal Caribbean chose to work outside of our typical negotiation channels between us and the other lines at (Cruise Lines International Association Alaska) and that relationship is going to need to be rebuilt,” Barr said, noting he was alerted Tuesday about Wednesday’s public announcement.
Among the agreements Barr cited is the five-ship-a-day limit in effect as of this year, which he noted is for the entire borough area, not just downtown. But he said he can’t say with legal certainty if that would apply to the land Goldbelt obtained via the 1971 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, even though CBJ’s boundaries extend beyond that area.
CBJ Municipal Attorney Emily Wright said “I’m definitely looking into it. I don’t know the answer because what I want to know is what’s the actual wording of the agreement.”
A copy of the agreement at the CBJ website states the cruise companies signing it agree to “limit port calls in Juneau beginning in the 2024 Alaska cruise season to a maximum of five cruise ships on the same day, from among all cruise ships calling at or intending to call at Juneau which are operated by any of the Cruise Lines, and that carry more than 950 passengers.”
It also states the agreement will be in effect for one year and “if the parties do not mutually agree on an update in one year the MOA shall continue unless sooner terminated by either of the parties on written notice.”
Goldbelt’s press release states the new port would “remove nearly one-third of bus traffic from Juneau’s most congested roadways,” suggesting a redistribution of existing traffic rather than an increase.
The announcement was made the day after the results of the Oct. 1 municipal election were certified, with the most prominent item on the ballot being the Ship-Free Saturday proposition that would have banned large cruise ships in Juneau on Saturdays and the Fourth of July. The proposition was defeated by a 61%-39% vote.
That makes the timing of the announcement “interesting,” especially given some of Royal Caribbean’s other recent actions, said CBJ Tourism Manager Alexandra Pierce. That includes being the last cruise line to sign a cooperative memorandum of agreement with the city and being the only cruise line to threaten a lawsuit if the Ship-Free Saturday initiative was approved.
“This is kind of further indicative of the same sort of anti-collaborative behavior from them,” Pierce said of the west Douglas cruise port announcement. “Our relationship with Goldbelt is a long-term relationship, it’s nuanced and of course we’re frustrated about the way that this rolled out on both sides. But Royal Caribbean was at the negotiating table with us and they know better.”
When asked about Pierre’s comments about the west Douglas port diverting congestion away from downtown, Pierce said “those would have been great conversations for us to have with them in a coordinated planning process where they approached us early to discuss how the city felt about that and how that fits into our long-term tourism strategy.”
“I’m much more concerned at the moment about the commitments that the industry has made, and that the other cruise lines and CLIA have made in good faith,” she said.
A statement issued Wednesday afternoon by Royal Caribbean, in response to inquires from the Empire, declared “today’s announcement about the exploration of a new port project is the start of an open dialogue with Juneau stakeholders and demonstrates our continued commitment to the region.”
“We have initiated a series of important conversations with local government officials and community stakeholders to explore and further define this opportunity,” the statement notes. “This port project aims to address the community’s traffic congestion concerns while improving the downtown experience for both locals and visitors. We will continue to uphold the very important MOAs with the City and Borough of Juneau.”
Development of area discussed for decades
Pierre said Goldbelt and the city have been discussing development projects on West Douglas for nearly three decades “and we finally have some of the pieces in place from Goldbelt’s perspective to make it a reality.”
“You have to have someone who’s willing to make an investment and have a long-term investment because creating a new area, moving utilities, building roads and infrastructure, that is expensive,” he said. “And then secondly the environment is right. There’s been a discussion in the community about making sure that we have a responsible tourism environment for people, locals and visitors, and we can help alleviate congestion and make a safer experience for everybody, lessen the total carbon footprint by making sure we develop this in a sustainable and user-friendly fashion, and make sure that the visitors are super-happy about it.”
The timing of the public announcement occurred once the partnership agreement with Royal Caribbean was signed, Pierce said.
“We didn’t want people to think we were making decisions or plans outside of the public’s awareness, and so we wanted to let people know right away and talk about it,” he said.
The next step, Pierre said, will be seeking input from Goldbelt shareholders about specifics of the project.
The press release issued by Goldbelt states that, in addition to providing cruise ship facilities and on-site employee housing, the project will serve “as an economic driver for the second Juneau-Douglas crossing and Douglas Bench Road, which have been city priorities for more than a decade.”
“Conveniently located directly in major shipping routes alongside Steven’s Passage, the project blueprint would offer an environmental advantage, reducing time, speed, and fuel requirements for ships sailing north to Skagway or west to the Gulf of Alaska, making it the most ideal stop-over for routing to Sitka or Seward,” the release notes.
A similar private port in Hoonah
Juneau currently has four cruise ship docks downtown, with a fifth privately owned dock being proposed by Huna Totem Corp. along Gastineau Channel off the intersection of Whittier Street and Egan Drive. That project — known as Àak’w Landing and which would include various visitor facilities — has been in the proposal stage since 2020 and in July finally cleared the hurdle of a legal challenge that allows the Juneau Assembly to consider if it will approve a lease for the project.
The proposed west Douglas project appears similar in concept to Huna Totem’s Icy Strait Point, said Nate Vallier, a partner with the travel agency Alaska Travel Desk.
Huna Totem states the Hoonah-area site is Alaska’s only privately owned cruise ship destination, with a cannery built in 1912 and bought by the company in 1996 converted to a visitor facility.
“When guests visit our historical town, which was once home to a fishing cannery, they can partake in 18 different shore excursions, dine at one of the many restaurants or shop at the locally owned stores,” Huna Totem’s website states.
Vallier said such a site in Juneau that highlights Tlingit heritage can be a valuable cultural addition.
“Huna Totem has very much embedded their heritage into Icy Strait Point with the Native employment, with the different shops, different artifacts, they have interpretation signs around there,” he said. “When it first opened it wasn’t very well received, but the last couple years they’ve been getting high marks because they finally mastered it. And I think Goldbelt was kind of looking around and going “OK, what do we do with Eaglecrest, for example, with this gondola, and what do we do with all this land? And to be honest it’s a brilliant idea.”
However, there are some questions to be addressed including transporting people who want to visit downtown and whether Royal Caribbean seeks to exclude ships at the west Douglas port from the five-ship limit, Vallier said. He said the proposal may also be a chance for city leaders to discuss how and where marine passenger fees are allocated given the wider area within CBJ ships would be accessing.
“We should be allowed to do as we please with the marine passenger funds,” he said. “I think that that should be able to go to things like infrastructure.”
• Contact Mark Sabbatini at mark.sabbatini@juneauempire.com or (907) 957-2306.
A dock and shore facilities are seen at Icy Strait Point, a privately owned cruise ship port in Hoonah owed by Huna Totem Corp. A similar project is being proposed on the west side of Douglas Island by Goldbelt Inc. and Royal Caribbean Group. (Laurie Craig / Juneau Empire)
