The state has announced it is moving forward with a new ferry terminal at Cascade Point north of Juneau. The Department of Transportation has issued a request for proposals from contractors for the project’s first phase, which includes a road extension and site work, but not a dock or terminal.

The department lacks funding for any actual dock construction.

The Cascade Point terminal would be constructed on land owned by Goldbelt, the Native corporation for Juneau, about 30 miles north of the existing Alaska Marine Highway System terminal at Auke Bay.

The state and Goldbelt in 2023 signed a memorandum of understanding to “pursue shared infrastructure” at Cascade Point, according to the Alaska Department of Transportation’s May 23 announcement.

The announcement emphasized that Cascade Point would not replace the Auke Bay ferry terminal, but would reduce ferry transit times in northern Lynn Canal between Juneau and Skagway/Haines by more than two hours roundtrip, allowing for possibly more ferry runs during the summer season.

The Cascade Point project, however, is not included in the ferry system’s long-range plan due to the lack of a feasibility study. And the Alaska Marine Highway Operations Board is not in support of the project until the feasibility study is completed.

DOT is moving forward with the project at this point “because we don’t want to lose the field season and want to be able to move the two design efforts together concurrently (the upland work and the buildings and systems),” Transportation Department spokeswoman Shannon McCarthy wrote in an email.

In telephone interviews with the Ketchikan Daily News, operations board chair Wanetta Ayers and recently retired board chair Shirley Marquardt voiced their concerns that the advisory board has yet to receive feasibility information from DOT regarding how Cascade Point would fit into or improve ferry operations.

“It’s puzzling to me, especially given the fiscal outlook for the state … we’ve got lots of challenges just with modernizing and upgrading the fleet and managing the terminals that we already have,” Ayers said June 4. “It’s not clear how Cascade Point fits into that.”

According to DOT’s May 23 announcement, the department is starting the first-phase design-build procurement process using money that had been appropriated for the Juneau Access project. That project, which envisioned a road from the Juneau area along the east side of Lynn Canal to a point just south of Skagway, was halted almost a decade ago.

About $35 million of the road money remains available, unspent, McCarthy wrote.

However, the state Legislature this past session took back the Juneau Access funding for use in other projects. The governor could veto the Legislature’s action, retaining the millions at DOT for possible use on the new ferry terminal project.

The DOT engineer’s estimate for the Cascade Point Ferry Terminal Stage 1 work included in the May 23 request for proposals is between $20 million and $30 million.

“Future construction contract values have a next stage projected value near $45 million,” McCarthy wrote.

The department lacks the money for the second phase of the project.

The first phase of the project would include “final design and construction of an access road for the end of Glacier Highway to the ferry terminal uplands site, a bridge over Cascade Creek along the access road ... and all initial site preparation and construction to top of subgrade and retaining wall construction for the upland ferry terminal site, and to secure, sort and stockpile material for the marine causeway on the upland ferry terminal site for future placement into the marine causeway.”

McCarthy said the work could start in 2026.

Goldbelt President and CEO McHugh Pierre said Goldbelt could lease a portion of the land to the state for the ferry terminal. “We don’t have the final details on that yet, and we’re working it out with DOT.”