The abandoned building shares a parking lot with KMXT and sits atop a hill next to a main thoroughfare. The Kodiak Island Borough’s engineering and facilities director, Dave Conrad, said the dozen or so apartments were built around the late 1960s, initially intended to serve as housing.
“These housing units were built when the borough building was the residence for the children from the villages that had to come in and finish their high school years,” he said. “So the people that lived in these buildings were the support staff for that.”
That was until it was converted to being a mental health center for Providence Health & Service’s Kodiak operations. But like the sign shows, it isn’t using that space anymore. And it hasn’t for the last two years.
The building is still in good condition – it would need a bit of dusting and outside work, and the building was kept warm with running water. But it’s getting torn down because under the surface, it’s filled with hazardous chemicals.
“There’s asbestos in the drywall compound, there’s asbestos in the floor tiles, probably the mastic, some lead paint has shown up,” Conrad said.
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention considers both asbestos and lead toxic and known to cause cancer. Conrad said they have to strip pretty much everything down to the studs and the foundation.
“There’s been a lot of pretty extensive testing done, sampling, and then there’s the piping that’s underneath,” he said. “There’s hard elbows that are likely asbestos-containing.”
The Borough Assembly voted to use nearly $1.4 million leftover from the federal American Rescue Plan Act for the demolition and abatement. It was getting close to the deadline to commit the funds, which would have just gone back to the federal government.
“These funds are designated for these types of projects, so it’s just that set of rules that were in place for that pot of money,” the facilities director said.
Once all that work is done, the borough has a few options. The borough could vote to tear the rest down and leave the area empty, but he hopes they choose to rebuild it with newer, safer materials.
If they do, it could help alleviate pressure in Kodiak’s tight housing market.
“Here’s 13 units that literally could be rented out and that’s 13 more things that don't have to be built from scratch,” Conrad said.
The building must be used for a “public good.” So any leases would have to be used for people like borough staff or for a local nonprofit. Conrad said he’s just glad something’s happening with the old building instead of using people’s taxes to heat an empty, and unused space.
