The Wrangell Borough Assembly Tuesday awarded a contract to prepare a development plan for Wrangell’s downtown waterfront. Corvus Design, Inc. will use a $75,000 state grant to look at possible uses for the waterfront between the Marine Service Center and City Dock.

Wrangell Borough Manager Jeff Jabusch said the design firm will organize public hearings before anything is decided.

“They are supposed to come in and meet with the port commission, meet with the businesses, meet with people in town, and kind of get input from all of those sources, and then add their own ideas, too, because that’s what they do,” Jabusch said.

Corvus also designed the Nolan Center, planned Front Street improvements, and developed the idea for the Mariner’s Memorial.

Assembly members also voted to approve a new shed for the water filtration system at the Marine Service Center. Grant funds of $63,650 will go to John Taylor & Sons, Inc. to construct the new shed.

The filtration system prevents contaminated water from entering the ocean.

But Public Works Director Carl Johnson said the new shed will have a heated floor because the system freezes in the winter.

“For several years now, we were gonna do something to put an electric boiler in, put some piping through that system to keep it thawed,” Johnson said.

Assembly members appointed Becky Rooney to the open assembly seat with a term expiring in October.

Jabusch also reported that the paving of Cassiar Street is underway. Residents in that area are switching to a temporary water source until a new water main and sewer are completed.