A regional Native corporation from Barrow is making inroads into Southeast Alaska. The Arctic Slope Regional Corporation purchased the business of McGraw Custom Construction, which has been in Sitka for 30 years.
McGraw is a frequent bidder on public works projects in Sitka and communities across Southeast Alaska. Arctic Slope’s purchase of McGraw could be a sign of companies positioning themselves to benefit from Sitka’s ambitious public works agenda.
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McGraw Custom Construction has been in business since 1978, and its work is visible across Southeast. They built the Sitka Fire Hall and Craig High School, along with Petersburg’s Aquatic Center and Wrangell’s wastewater treatment plant.
Its acquisition presents a foray into Southeast for the Barrow-based Arctic Slope corporation, which has 11,000 Inupiaq shareholders.
“The larger Arctic Slope Corporation is looking to make a presence in Southeast Alaska,” said Sitka Public Works Director Michael Harmon, at an Assembly meeting in late December. “They believe the McGraw name and group have a good reputation in Southeast, and so they’re buying into that, and creating a home office in Sitka, and intending to go after any and all projects they can get their hands on.”
Arctic Slope Regional Corporation is the regional Native corporation for the North Slope area. Southeast’s regional Native corporation is Sealaska.
Sealaska Executive Vice President Rick Harris said in a statement that the company is “committed to sustaining and creating new economic opportunities for Southeast, whether that is performed by Sealaska or other businesses in the region.”
Chuck McGraw, who started McGraw Custom Construction, said he’s now an employee of the ASRC subsidiary, and has been asked to refer reporters to the company’s press office.
Company officials did not respond to repeated requests for an interview. ASRC spokesman Ty Hardt sent a statement acknowledging ASRC’s purchase of McGraw. It offered no details about the transaction.
One thing is clear: Sitka has tens of millions of dollars in public works projects to accomplish in the next few years.
“We have 55 major capital projects and those are the projects large enough that we have to bid them out,” the city’s Harmon said. “That’s above $50,000.”
Harmon says he doesn’t know if ASRC’s purchase is a one-off, or a sign of things to come.
“Well, we really don’t know if this will be the tip of the iceberg, so to speak, of more maneuvers for companies to come in and position for all this work,” he said. “But I would say it wasn’t a surprise to see that start happening, and it would not surprise me to see more of that, because this is a lot of work.”
In the next year alone, Sitka hopes to begin work on a sea walk, upgrades to Centennial Hall, and a deepwater dock at the Sawmill Cove Industrial Park. The work is worth more than 15 million dollars. The most recent version of the full list is some 50 projects long and spans five years and more than $130 million.
Harmon says the updated 5-year plan, which will add in work on Sitka’s harbors and roads, could exceed $200 million.
That’s a lot to accomplish, and a lot to bid on for companies looking to do the work. These projects are just starting to pique the interest of companies. Then there’s the granddaddy of all Sitka projects: A $100 million plan to raise the Blue Lake dam.
That project – which is separate from the city’s public works master plan – has been getting a lot of attention.
“I’ve had a couple experiences with folks actually coming through town on a cruise ship visit, and stop by and ask about the project,” said Chris Brewton, Sitka’s utility director.
The city hasn’t put the construction work on Blue Lake out for bid yet. The contract is estimated to be worth about $50 million, and could have a construction crew between 50 and 100 people. Brewton says the attention is a good thing.
“We’d rather have a large selection of qualified bidders to choose from that’s going to help the city get the best product for the price, versus having one or two that Dean is training along the way,” he said.
Dean is Dean Orbison, the project engineer for Blue Lake. He says the project could mean local jobs, but that where the workers come from is entirely up to whichever contractor gets the job.
“Quite frankly, if they’re local, he doesn’t have to pay per diem, and so if there are local qualified people available, he will certainly look at them, because he makes more money that way,” Orbison said. “But if there aren’t local people qualified that he can make money with, which is his goal, he will bring them in from outside.”
Blue Lake construction will take two years, hopefully beginning in January 2013. The city’s other public works projects are staggered over a five-year span. All of them, city officials say, mean lots of work, and lots of attention from contractors, in the next few years.
