A $55 million ice-breaking ferry would be the star attraction at Ship Creek, a novelty that tourists would flock to see, say its proponents in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough.
Anchorage officials say the ferry and its associated dock are too industrial for the tourist-friendly waterfront they foresee along Ship Creek. They'd rather see the new ferry, being built to connect Anchorage to Port MacKenzie, dock at the nearby city-owned Port of Anchorage.
For six years, planners have looked for a spot at which to build an Anchorage dock for the 195-foot catamaran-style ferry under construction in Ketchikan.
Mat-Su Borough port director Marc Van Dongen said that delay means the ferry, due for completion next year, will not begin operating across Cook Inlet for a year or more while landings are built for it.
"Without question, this is the biggest frustration I've had in 40 years of construction work," Van Dongen said.
Early this month, he and three Mat-Su Assembly members met with three Anchorage Assembly members and a table full of Anchorage city employees to find a solution.
On the Mat-Su side, a $4.5 million ferry terminal building is ready for passengers. The borough has permits to build its ferry dock near the terminal.
On the Anchorage side, a June 2003 environmental assessment offered two choices for a ferry landing: at the North Star Terminal and Stevedore Co. or at Ship Creek Point.
Van Dongen said the North Star site "proved problematic" for several reasons.
It required negotiating with three leaseholders for permission to use the area. Passengers would have to pass a fuel tank farm and could be delayed by fuel trains for up to 20 minutes. Allowing ferry traffic through the restricted port is a security issue, he said.
The borough asked the Federal Transit Authority for permission to build at the south dock of Ship Creek Point.
In spring 2006, Anchorage officials were on board with the Ship Creek plans. Port of Anchorage deputy director Kevin Bruce called Ship Creek Point "the best landing location for the Knik Arm Ferry" in a February 2006 letter to the Federal Transit Authority.
"The (Ship Creek) area is in dire need of cleanup and revitalization, and the ferry landing could spur this kind of activity," Mary Jane Michael wrote in March 2006 to the authority.
Michael is the executive director of the Anchorage Office of Economic and Community Development. At the Thursday meeting, she said she sees things differently now.
"I do realize it's important for Mat-Su," she said. "But our preferred location is at the Port of Anchorage."
PROTECTING SHIP CREEK
All passengers would board the ferry by bus or personal vehicles. A line of cars queuing up for the ferry is not compatible with fish-and-chips sellers and waterfront stores, she said.
Ferry activity could deter salmon and beluga whales at the mouth of Ship Creek, one of the busiest salmon fisheries in the state.
"We're looking at a 600-foot trestle in the mouth of Ship Creek. Ship Creek is vital to Anchorage. A trestle extending out to the mouth of Ship Creek is simply not acceptable," Michael said.
If a ferry were built and the Knik Arm Bridge and Toll Authority succeeds in building a bridge connecting Anchorage and Mat-Su, the ferry, its dock and everything built along with it will become obsolete, Michael said.
That would leave Anchorage "with a structure that we either have to remove or find a use for," she added.
TIED TO TOURISM
But the port area has problems, too. In October, port director and former Gov. Bill Sheffield wrote to Van Dongen to say that the only place he could offer at the Port of Anchorage would require Mat-Su to change the design of its dock to allow the loading and unloading of vehicles on the ferry.
Van Dongen said changing the Mat-Su dock could place the ferry in the path of flowing ice and would prevent Port MacKenzie from expanding.
Alaska Railroad Corp. board chairman John Binkley said a Ship Creek ferry dock would fit in well with railroad plans to build an "intermodal" facility at the Ship Creek rail depot.
The $60 million facility would remedy inefficiencies at the existing depot and, eventually, let passengers change from rail, air or marine traffic to buses, taxis, private cars and other methods of travel.
"(We) are very interested in how Ship Creek develops. Our plan does include having a ferry docking facility on Ship Creek that would allow not only for ferries but also day cruises," Binkley said recently.
Alaska Railroad strategic planning director Bruce Carr said the railroad owns the land under both the Ship Creek dock and the Port of Anchorage. Anchorage leases both properties. As long as road improvements are part of the ferry project, either choice will work, he said.
Allan Tesche of the Anchorage Assembly said he's reluctant to proceed with a ferry landing until Anchorage and Mat-Su agree on other basic details, such as the Anchorage role, if any, in ferry operations.
"I don't think, without an agreement between the parties, the project is going to move ahead," Tesche said.
Find Daily News reporter Rindi White online at www.adn.com/contact/rwhite or call her in Wasilla at 1-907-352-6709.
Ferry facts
Cost to build: $55 million, funded by Office of Naval Research
Capacity: 115 passengers and 20 cars
Cost to build a Mat-Su ferry landing: estimated $9 million
Cost to build an Anchorage ferry landing: estimated between $12 and $30 million
