A deteriorating baseball dugout that had been gathering moss and rot at Petersburg’s ball field has found new life as a much-needed weather shelter at the Banana Point boat launch.

Back in March, Public Works employee Martin Odegaard was dropping his child off at Banana Point to catch the boat to Wrangell for a wrestling trip on a typically miserable late-winter day.

“It was pissing rain, as it always is this time of year,” Odegaard recalled. “All these kids are getting soaking wet. I’m like, you know, we need something here. “

He thought of the old baseball dugout — or to be more precise half of a dugout — that had been sitting idle on the outskirts of the ball field for years, occasionally repurposed for events like chamber of commerce booths but now mostly just succumbing to the elements.

Parks and Recreation Director Stephanie Payne was happy to see the weathering structure put to good use rather than eventually hauled to the dump.

Odegaard and crew brought it into their shop at Public Works and began the transformation, working on it when they had downtime during the generally slower late winter months.

The renovation made use of surplus borough materials: paint, roofing materials, plexiglass windows, trim boards and additional benches. “The only thing that we had to buy for this whole project was the concrete anchors,” said Odegaard.

“All of it was kind of just stuff that we had around between me and building maintenance and Parks and Rec,” he said. “It was just nice to kind of clean out the closet, so to speak, and get rid of some of this stuff.”

The high school shop class cut a wooden sign for the small shelter, which was installed as the final piece of the project this spring.

“Welcome to Petersburg,” it displays for passengers coming from Wrangell and waiting for a ride into town, or folks waiting for water taxis to Wrangell, or just anyone at the Banana Point boat launch needing to get out of the rain.

The project did require some coordination with the Alaska Department of Natural Resources, since the land isn’t borough property. The department approved the installation as a non-permanent structure.

“It turned out really well,” Odegaard said. He was especially satisfied with the collaborative spirit that went into it — Public Works, Parks and Rec, Building Maintenance and the high school shop class — all chipping in some effort or materials to help provide folks some much needed shelter where there was none before.