KTUU News
By Joe Allgood
After over 60 years of existence, the Don Young Port of Alaska is already in the process of the largest change since its inception.
As part of the Port of Alaska Modernization Program, a contract for over $800 million in work was awarded by the municipality of Anchorage for a new terminal, meaning designs over a decade in the making will begin to take shape.
“This is probably the biggest infrastructure project that the state of Alaska has ever seen since maybe the Trans-Alaska pipeline,” said Port Director Steve Ribuffo. “It is that size in significance not only because of the cost, because of the magnitude of change in one place that’s going to happen over a decade.
“Nothing happens fast.”
The main impetus for the project is corrosion and age, prompting safety concerns.
“We were pretty old, and while it served us well, these are modern times, and the corrosion is something that needed to be dealt with,” Ribuffo said.
The port officially opened in 1961, only three years before the 1964 Good Friday earthquake. Since the earthquake did not damage the port as it did ports in Whittier, Seward, and Valdez, cargo traffic was redirected to Anchorage.
If another ’64-sized earthquake were to hit southcentral, Ribuffo is not so sure the port would survive.
Read Full Story Here:
https://www.alaskasnewssource.com/2025/04/24/port-alaska-prepares-historic-overhaul/
Anchorage Daily News
By Zachariah Hughes
The Anchorage Assembly approved two measures this week that clear a path for funding and finishing a longstanding overhaul of the state’s main port facility.
“If you’ve been on the journey of the Port for the past decade, you know these two items represent significant milestones,” Assembly Vice Chair Meg Zaletel said in a statement after the votes took place at a special Assembly meeting Wednesday afternoon.
One of the ordinances approved gives the city the ability to sell up to $1.1 billion in revenue bonds to pay for construction work at the Don Young Port of Alaska as part of the port’s ongoing modernization project. Unlike the general obligation bonds that are paid back over time through local property taxes to finance things like road improvements and school upgrades, revenue bonds are long-term debt repaid through fees.
In this case, that means surcharges collected on material coming through the port that are passed along to consumers as part of the prices they pay when they buy groceries, fuel and other goods imported to Alaska through the port. Shoppers and consumers in Alaska already pay those fees for the cargo coming into the port. Future revenue bonds mean they will go up down the road.
Read Full Story Here:
https://www.adn.com/alaska-news/anchorage/2025/04/17/unanimous-assembly-votes-secure-11b-financing-option-for-port-of-alaska-and-construction-contract/
KTUU News
By Jonson Kuhn
More than $807 million in Port of Alaska cargo terminal upgrades were approved Wednesday by Anchorage Assembly members, after Anchorage’s mayor dismissed a rejected bidder’s “serious concerns” about the process.
The project, awarded to Manson/Michels Joint Venture and slated to begin next year as part of the port’s modernization project, includes supporting operations like military deployments and cruise ships.
Also approved on Wednesday, a $1.1 billion extension, which creates the budgetary authority for the Municipality to enter into contracts up to that amount.
Anchorage Mayor Suzanne LaFrance called the two unanimous votes a “historic move forward.”
“Thank you to the members of this body, not only for your unanimous approval and unanimous dissent, but for the way in which you have engaged in this project,” LaFrance said.
Read Full Story Here:
https://www.alaskasnewssource.com/2025/04/17/dismissing-bidders-serious-concerns-anchorage-assembly-approves-807-million-port-cargo-construction-project/
Anchorage Daily News
By Emily Goodykoontz
A federal appeals court panel has overturned a previous decision that awarded more than $367.4 million to the Municipality of Anchorage in its lawsuit against the federal government over failed construction work at the Don Young Port of Alaska.
In an opinion issued Monday, a panel of judges with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit partially rescinded a 2021 ruling that a federal claims court judge had made in the municipality’s favor and slashed damages awarded to just $11.3 million.
“This is a disappointment, and we are continuing to consider appropriate next steps,” Mayor Suzanne LaFrance said during her opening remarks at Tuesday night’s Assembly meeting.
Anchorage entered a memorandum of agreement with the federal Maritime Administration, or MARAD, back in 2003 to overhaul the facility. The city later discovered much of the work done by subcontractors had been botched.
Read Full Story Here:
https://www.adn.com/alaska-news/anchorage/2024/12/18/federal-appeals-court-overturns-367m-award-to-anchorage-in-lawsuit-over-faulty-port-construction/
U.S. Senators Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan (both R-Alaska), and Representative Mary Sattler Peltola (D-Alaska), announced today that six coastal communities in Alaska will receive more than $104 million in investments this year for critical port and maritime infrastructure. These grants, funded by both annual appropriations and the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), will benefit port, harbor, and dock improvement and development in communities across Alaska. The IIJA provided $2.25 billion in funds available over five years to the Port Infrastructure Development Program (PIDP), which is a key funding avenue for Alaska coastal communities. Funding for these grants was made up of $450 million from the IIJA with an additional $50 million provided in the FY24 Appropriations Act, for a total of $500 million in available funding.
Read Full Press Release Here:
https://www.sullivan.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/delegation-applauds-104-million-for-alaska-port-and-maritime-infrastructure-projects
By Emily Goodykoontz
Anchorage Daily News
The Anchorage Assembly on Wednesday unanimously passed three measures critical to moving ahead with the modernization project at the Don Young Port of Alaska, including approval of an expanded design for cargo terminal two.
Wednesday’s votes ended a nearly two-year-long debate over whether to move ahead with the more expensive design for the two cargo terminals. Cargo terminal two will now be built to the same 120-foot width as terminal one, which means both docks will be able to accommodate 100-gauge cranes.
The Assembly also approved a bond sale of up to $180 million to fund work and payments related to the port modernization project in 2025. Another approved measure increases tariffs to pay for the bonds.
“These are big milestones in a very long-term project,” Assembly Vice Chair Meg Zaletel said.
Read Full Story Here:
https://www.adn.com/alaska-news/anchorage/2024/11/07/anchorage-assembly-approves-expanded-design-for-port-of-alaskas-cargo-terminals/
By Emily Goodykoontz
Anchorage Daily News
As the Municipality of Anchorage presses forward with the massive modernization project at the Don Young Port of Alaska, city officials say that construction of the first cargo dock terminal will likely be delayed, and much of that work won’t start next summer as previously intended.
That’s because the city did not receive any bids from construction companies after undergoing a monthslong procurement process to select one.
“We anticipate a delay of one season on the actual dock construction. There are other portions of the project, things like the electrical systems — that work should be able to proceed on schedule,” said Jim Jager, the port’s spokesman.
The city is now retooling its bid proposal package in order to make it more attractive to potential bidders, Municipal Manager Becky Windt Pearson told the Anchorage Assembly last week.
Meanwhile, the Assembly is set to vote on a slate of measures related to the modernization project.
Read Full Story Here:
https://www.adn.com/alaska-news/anchorage/2024/11/05/port-of-alaska-cargo-terminal-construction-could-be-delayed-due-to-lack-of-contractor-bids/
KTUU News
By Lauren Maxwell
An issue that temporarily held up funding for the modernization project at the Don Young Port of Alaska has been resolved with the federal government, according to port officials.
The massive project, expected to cost between $1.8 to $2 billion, will include two new modern cargo terminals when it’s completed over the next several years.
Port Director Steve Ribuffo said the current part of the project, the North Extension Stabilization Phase One, began about four weeks ago and is now fully funded almost exclusively by state and federal grants.
Workers are removing a massive infrastructure of sheet metal cells on the north side of the port that the city says were poorly designed and subject to failure in an earthquake. The work was the subject of a lawsuit the city filed and won against the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Maritime Administration (MARAD) and its contractors, but the award of more than $360 million to the city is currently on appeal.
Read Full Story Here:
https://www.alaskasnewssource.com/2024/06/18/next-phase-modernization-project-underway-don-young-port-alaska/
Anchorage Daily News
By Emily Goodykoontz
Construction crews at the Don Young Port of Alaska on Wednesday began work on the next phase of the massive port modernization project, after the Municipality of Anchorage received a long-awaited federal environmental approval that unlocks tens of millions of dollars in grant funding.
In late April, an unexpected delay in the completion of the environmental review threatened to halt plans for the summer construction season. The holdup left the port burning through cash under a $97.5 million construction contract as crews and equipment sat idle at the facility for weeks.
But that final approval from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Maritime Administration, or MARAD, arrived Tuesday, allowing work on the North Extension Stabilization phase one to proceed, according to city officials.
Read Full Story Here:
https://www.adn.com/alaska-news/anchorage/2024/05/30/anchorage-gets-federal-ok-to-start-work-on-massive-port-of-alaska-modernization-project/
Anchorage Daily News
By Emily Goodykoontz
The Anchorage Assembly has renamed the Port of Alaska after late U.S. Rep. Don Young. Members on Tuesday voted on a new name — the Don Young Port of Alaska — after a monthslong back-and-forth.
Before members ultimately approved the new name in a 10-2 vote, Tuesday night’s debate devolved into a procedural mess.
Some members wanted to postpone a decision until February or March. That drew the ire of Mayor Dave Bronson, who at one point during the meeting vetoed an amendment by some Assembly members that would have postponed a vote until March.
Bronson proposed renaming the port after Young in March 2022, soon after the longtime Alaska congressman died during a flight to Seattle while on his way home. Young was the longest-serving member of the Congress when he died at age 88.
Read full story here:
https://www.adn.com/alaska-news/anchorage/2024/01/10/anchorage-assembly-approves-renaming-port-don-young-port-of-alaska/
