The assembly has scheduled a public hearing for Tuesday, June 9, on two separate requests to lease borough property at the 6-Mile Mill site for a small-scale data center and for a new barge landing and freight yard.
The public hearing will start at 6 p.m.
Greensparc, the California-based company that proposed last summer to build a small data center in Wrangell, ran into significant local opposition. Residents spoke of their concerns about possible noise and whether the draw on the power grid would create shortages during times of peak demand in the community.
“This town is not super-stoked on the data center,” Borough Manager Mason Villarma said at an assembly meeting in April.
The other request on the June 9 assembly agenda to lease borough-owned property is from Alaska Marine Lines, which proposes to build and operate a barge ramp and freight yard at the 6-Mile waterfront.
AML’s privately owned operation would replace the borough-owned barge ramp next to the City Dock downtown. The borough shut down that ramp more than a year ago after an engineer’s inspection discovered corrosion and deformed steel and determined that the almost half-century-old steel ramp was unsafe to use.
AML applied last fall to lease a few acres of borough tidelands at the former mill site for a 120-foot-long ramp and four mooring dolphins at the northern end of the property.
