By BRUCE ABEL
Sept. 22, 2026 – Juneau Assembly decisions are too often viewed by both the public and sitting assembly members as isolated decisions without consideration for downstream consequences. This is a natural state of public policy decision making. After all, city government has always been able to return to the public to shore up its financial resources with fresh tax revenue. Unfortunately, this disconnect often results in poor long-term decisions.
For example, the Juneau Assembly holds a sliver of tidewater between the old sub-port property owned by Huna Totem Corporation and the State of Alaska Tidelands. This property, originally slated for a new state of the art cruise ship dock, Aak’w Landing, included uplands development with a reception hall, restaurants, shops, covered parking, a public park, and even affordable housing. At the time permitting began, Huna-Totem was ready to commit nearly two hundred million dollars to the project.
This investment in Juneau would have provided dozens of short-term construction jobs, material sales and substantial CBJ revenue. In the long term, the original design would have provided roughly a hundred new job opportunities for our community and perpetual tax revenue. The original project would have taken pressure off the downtown core via a world class development, something cruise critics have advocated for years.
But after years of CBJ stonewalling, the project scope has been reduced to a dock, a reception building and surface parking because the permitting delay changed the financial reality of the development. Delay tactics are often used by bureaucracies when administration leadership wants to kill a project without igniting a public debate.
The result? Juneau will have all the impact on the dock without most of the community benefits. We won’t get restaurants, covered parking, a park, housing, or nearly as many jobs in both the short and long term.
That doesn’t sit well with me and perfectly illustrates the disconnect between short-term thinking and long-term community impact. By delaying the project, CBJ leadership has reduced future tax revenues, destroyed job opportunities, construction jobs, and material sales. Was this wise? Where was CBJ leadership while this was unfolding? Why wasn’t the Assembly demanding action? Did leadership consider or even understand the impacts on Juneau that slow walking the tidewater lease and permits would have? Of course, when you believe there’s an unending revenue stream via tapping the existing tax base then there really isn’t any incentive or sense of urgency to encourage growing the tax base.
Now what about Goldbelt’s master plan for North Douglas? The development will invest nearly a half a billion dollars into Juneau, add hundreds of jobs, create life changing opportunity for our children, bring housing, add children to the schools and add millions in tax dollars to the CBJ treasury.
So where is city leadership on that project? I sure don’t see a concerted push to help foster and promote the development. Instead, there seems to be resistance and need to show who’s in charge. How does that benefit the taxpayers of Juneau? The CBJ hasn’t figured out that business moves quickly via necessity, a lesson the Assembly would be wise to learn.
Once again, short term decisions at the city seem to be more important than long term benefits. And this brings me to the Assembly elections. Which candidates are interested in growing Juneau, and which candidates would rather manage decline? Which have a proven track record of obstructing development, opportunity and growth? How does that affect your vote?
I’d like to see Juneau prosper, which is only possible when we actively grow our community through business opportunity and development. That hasn’t been a focus of CBJ leadership for at least the last twenty years, and we are living the result; school closures, shrinking enrollment, higher taxes, unaffordable housing, and a shrinking population.
It’s time to change that trajectory. It’s time for the CBJ to promote and encourage private development and eliminate the government barriers that so often kill development projects.
Juneau needs to elect candidates that understand the CBJ is in business forever and act accordingly.
Bruce Abel, a graduate of the University of Alaska Fairbanks (BBA) and Gonzaga University (MBA), is retired. He owned and operated Don Abel Building Supply and Valley Lumber Company. He is a past President of the Juneau Chamber of Commerce and the Western Building Material Dealer Association. He is currently the Vice Chairman of Alaska Aerospace Corporation.
4 thoughts on “Bruce Abel: What Juneau loses when development stalls”
You’re starting from the wrong premise, that they’re interested in success. They’d rather cause
Failure. There’s no increase in power to be had by making things better. When it goes sideways, people call Big Government for help, which can be leveragedinto increased POWER! , which tires you the ability to ” reward friends and punish enemies ” the role of government, according to the Holy Obama
Some of them would be happy if Alaska was a park. They are obviously uninterested in building a community for families – but they’ll just about lay down their lives for a community of drag queens.
Bruce Abel’s article is not an expression of opinion but rather that of inarguable facts. For residents of Juneau to flourish, we must heed this kind of input. I thank him for his willingness to speak out in this clear manner.
I agree with you Bruce! However, you keep using the verbiage “CBJ leadership”. I think you are being overly generous and overly gracious in assigning the term CBJ “leadership” to an entity that actually has none.