Goldbelt leaders share plans for private Douglas cruise port with Juneau Assembly
- Jasz Garrett
- Oct 1
- 9 min read
"Goldbelt believes it can be the high tide that lifts all boats.”
By Jasz Garrett
Juneau Independent
Juneau Assembly members who’ve spent a year waiting got a chance this week to ask Goldbelt Inc. leaders about the company’s plans for a two-dock cruise ship port on the west side of Douglas Island.
At Monday’s Assembly Committee of the Whole meeting, Deputy Mayor Greg Smith asked McHugh Pierre, president and CEO of Goldbelt, when he expects the dock to be in operation.
“It’s to be determined,” Pierre replied. “I don’t know what is reasonable and what we can accomplish and how many people we expect to have.”
He said the last time he gave an estimate for completion, the reaction from the city was “‘Oh my gosh.’” He said 2027 is not an achievable date. A banner at the bottom of the project's website announces a grand opening in 2028.
Instead of when, Pierre and Katherine Eldemar, chair of Goldbelt’s board of directors, detailed the what and the why of the “grand design” for the Goldbelt Aaní project. The two executives also said the project may be just the beginning of development on the west side parcel of the company’s Douglas Island land.
Goldbelt was organized in 1974 under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA). The for-profit Alaska Native corporation (ANC) was given land through ANCSA in Echo Cove, Cascade Point, Douglas Island, and Hobart Bay, according to Eldemar.
Before Monday, the only official action involving the city was a pre-application meeting between Goldbelt officials and the city’s Community Development Department. Pierre told Assembly members Goldbelt is “being very deliberate in pursuing all the permits and making sure we have all the fundamental questions answered before we move forward.”
Eldemar said she is proud to call Goldbelt “a forever company,” and this means they strive for excellence by providing a service “that is welcome and wanted,” with the goal of employing people.
“One of the things that has been driving some of our discussion internally is the fact that the Department of Labor came out with a study in January in the Trends magazine, and it said, ‘Geez, in 25 years, we expect the population of Southeast to decline by 17%,’” Pierre said. “We took offense to that, right? We believe it’s our mission to invest in the community, grow opportunities, build certainty and provide that foundation for families to grow and have confidence to remain in Juneau.”
Pierre said Goldbelt Aaní is one of the ways the corporation can accomplish the mission of investing in the community, growing opportunities and providing the foundation for families to grow and have confidence to remain in Juneau. The presentation outlined the project's three stages of development.
The first stage includes infrastructure, a welcome center and docks. In this stage, Pierre said a wastewater treatment facility and roads will be built. Goldbelt would also like future activity to support water-based transportation.
He said the corporation evaluated the land for the feasibility of building upon it before they began stage one.
“We know we can develop everything we’re proposing,” Pierre said. “At some time, the land will sustain it. And so that’s really important to know.”
He answered a question on the minds of Assembly and community members: “Why tourism?”
“While Goldbelt has the means today that it did not in 1991 — we have been successful and been responsible stewards of the tribal shareholders’ company — it’s still irresponsible to develop such an investment without a customer base to support it,” Pierre said. “And so that’s why we sought the semi-private cruise destination to build that stable economic engine for our future growth.”
The second stage is retail, restaurants and the tourism experience. Pierre said Goldbelt will develop a retail system, shelter, warehouses for businesses, food and beverage, and water-based activities for excursions.
He said Goldbelt Aaní’s goal is to connect culture to education and people: it is more than a job creator. He said the “crown jewel” of the tourism experience is the replica Tlingit village.
Pierre asked, “What will Tlingit culture be in 50 more years or 100 years?”
“Sure, there’s going to be road building and construction and all that stuff, but there’s also going to be carving and all of the weaving and the storytelling, and the ability to make culture a career, and that’s something that we’re really excited about and fascinated for,” he said. “So it won’t just stop when the facility is fully completed. It will continue on through the existence of the facility, and we're very excited to continue to represent the people and the place in a world-class way.”
The third stage is the completion of port construction and the beginning of Goldbelt’s future priorities.
“I think it’s really important for everyone to remember we’re talking about a small piece of Douglas Island,” Pierre said. “It sounds big when you say 277 acres, but Goldbelt actually owns 1,830 acres — the coast essentially from Outer Point all the way down to Point Hilda. So there’s a tremendous opportunity for the future, once we have the basic infrastructure put in place for all of the future goals of that area to be finally realized.”
Deputy Mayor Greg Smith said he wanted to ensure it was understood a master plan is needed for the new-growth area.
Pierre disagreed.
“We’re not in agreement in that this land specifically is not a new-growth area, and we believe that we can start to move forward with infrastructure under the current ordinance and everything that is approved with the current city rules,” he said. “Goldbelt would be happy to work with the city concurrently, but Goldbelt would not be happy to be sidelined and stopped altogether from development because the city wants to do something on its land or plan something around its land.”
“We would like to work with you, but not at the expense of the Tlingit people being able to develop Tlingit land,” Pierre said.
In the 1970s, CBJ selected 3,434 acres of land next to Goldbelt’s land on Douglas. The 1997 West Douglas conceptual plan stated the property “is the largest developable block of land accessible to the existing city of Juneau.”
Eldemar said she was born and raised in Juneau and understands the housing issues.
“There are additional plans that have been studied for West Douglas, and when I read and reread how much land the city has, all I have to say is, ‘Hello, neighbor,’” Eldemar said. “You are our neighbors and neighbors do well when they get along and we’ve always gotten along.”
Since her tenure with Goldbelt, which began in the late 1980s, the corporation has worked together with the city, she said.
The meeting began, as all city meetings have since 2021, with a land acknowledgement that Juneau resides on Tlingit land and wishes to honor the Indigenous people on the land.
“For more than 10,000 years, Alaska Native people have been and continue to be integral to the well-being of our community,” Assembly Member Paul Kelly said. “We are grateful to be in this place, a part of this community, and to honor the culture, traditions and resilience of the Tlingit people.”
Eldemar thanked the city for its land acknowledgement and said Tlingit culture is tied to the land. She said the early days of Goldbelt were challenging. Her father, John Eldemar Jr., was an interim director for the corporation.
“We selected land given it was selected,” she said. “And there was no money. They really struggled. There were no Harvard Law, Harvard Business, Yale Business, or law around the table. But they were smart, and they never gave up. No matter what the challenge, they overcame, they adapted, and here we are today. In the early days, it was anticipated, in fact, that some of the ANCs may not survive. And in fact, no, some haven’t.”
Eldemar said ANSCA’s structure is intended to enable Native corporations to operate with a socioeconomic responsibility to their shareholders.
“Goldbelt strives to fulfill the intent of ANCSA,” she said. “What does that mean? ANCSA intends that these ANCs are not like normal businesses, I'll call them, where you just start up a business, shove a lot of money from profits in your pockets and you’re all happy.”
Eldemar and Pierre said the proposed ANSCA development on Douglas Island benefits Goldbelt, its shareholders and the Juneau community. Pierre expressed Goldbelt’s commitment to working with local businesses, shareholders and nonshareholders.
“Goldbelt believes it can be the high tide that lifts all boats,” Pierre said.
Last year, downtown business owners and the city's tourism manager expressed concerns about the overall impact on the community.
Pierre said a frequently asked question is whether ANSCA land is taxable. He said once the land is developed, it pays taxes. With a $500 million investment expectation and 277 acres of land, Pierre said Goldbelt is projected to be the largest taxpayer in the City and Borough of Juneau.
“We are all on Tlingit land and it is expansive,” Eldemar said. “This is just a small portion that remain in the possession of the ANCs. We do have a tremendous responsibility. So, as we look at Douglas, we do not look in isolation. We look at our property and who are our neighbors.”
Assembly Member Christine Woll said she was glad the city’s interest in developing housing was a part of the presentation, but she also raised concerns from Douglas residents. About 60 members of the public attended Monday’s meeting.
“But our biggest hurdle has been North Douglas Highway and what it can support for traffic, which is why we’ve been very aggressive at a second crossing,” Woll said. “I’m imagining this will be a challenge for your project. Are you intending to connect to the road system in your early phases, and/or how do you expect to address that?”
Pierre said they intend to have a fully functioning semi-private facility that would not encourage people to use the public highway, although they cannot prevent people from doing so.
“We would like to have everything go from the water side and use existing city infrastructure,” he said. “It’s something that we’ve been very deliberate in as we looked at ways to accommodate people who might want to go to the glacier. We’ve kicked around the idea of operating a shuttle ferry because we believe we’re going to lower the total amount of traffic in Auke Bay by removing visitors from the water excursion base there.”
He said they would like visitors to use Eaglecrest Ski Area and Goldbelt is currently working on its traffic study.
“We have tried to find this sweet balance between encouraging tourism, which we love to have in Juneau, and lowering impacts to community members,” Mayor Beth Weldon said. “What would be your comments to the people that are concerned about growing tourism in general?”
Pierre said the proposed project aims to alleviate congestion from tourism in downtown Juneau.
Kelly asked how the two new docks would fit with the negotiated five-ship cruise limit.
“That’s based on the participants of the five-ship limit, right?” Pierre said. “It’s their responsibility to honor that and follow that. And the potential customers that we’ve been talking to, said they intend to honor it. So I don’t anticipate it doing anything negative to add business. We anticipate this to be a mutually beneficial reduction of traffic and congestion that allows everybody to have a better experience in Juneau. Residents, visitors, businesses, everybody.”
Goldbelt and Royal Caribbean Group first announced the West Douglas cruise port in October 2024. In April of this year, Weldon demanded answers about the process from Royal Caribbean representative Russell Benford. He said the conversation needed to be between CBJ and Goldbelt.
Assembly Member Alicia Hughes-Skandijs asked for clarification on Goldbelt’s willingness to work alongside the city as land development progresses on Douglas.
“We want to work through the permitting process,” Pierre told her. “So we believe the current permitting process allows us to move forward responsibly and work cooperatively with you. It’s not our intent to bring bulldozers out there right now and start paving roads.”
Assembly Member Wade Bryson noted that clear-cutting of trees has already begun. He asked what changes the public can expect next.
“We need to go through the permitting process to make sure that we can do the next kind of thing,” Pierre said. “And so before we start investing in new transformers to put at the facility, the electrical substation, we’re going to go through some of those internal things. So I don’t think you're going to see a lot of activity over the winter that will spark comments or questions, but there’s going to be activity here between us to make sure that we have all of those boxes checked so we can start doing some of that as soon as possible.”
• Contact Jasz Garrett at jasz@juneauindependent.com or (907) 723-9356.
