Downtown Juneau’s popular Marine Park will become a construction site for more than a year starting next week.
The park will undergo a major multimillion-dollar rebuild meant to make the area less congested during the summer tourism season and provide more community gathering spaces.
Lauren Verrelli, the deputy director of Juneau’s Parks and Recreation department, said the park’s reconstruction is expected to start on March 2 and last through April of 2027.
“We’re really excited to have a more open, welcoming gathering space for the community,” she said.
Verrelli said the goal is for the rebuild to cause as little disruption as possible. Starting next week, the city will fence off the construction area and put up signs for navigating around it. The city is contracting with Dawson Construction to do the renovation.
The rebuild is estimated to cost nearly $10 million and will be paid entirely by fees the city collects from cruise ship tourists that visit Juneau, called marine passenger fees.
In 2022, a city survey received more than 1,000 responses from residents about what they’d like to see included in the park.
“One of the biggest things that we heard is they want a stage and performance area. We’re very excited about that. It’s being built on water side, so looking towards town,” Verrelli said. “I hope in the future, we’ll have more like ‘music in the parks’ programming for Parks and Recreation. So we’ll utilize this space.”
In addition to a covered stage and performance area, the renovation will include the construction of a new plaza, picnic tables and seating, and a small play area for children. The new Marine Park will also feature a Northwest Coast formline art inlay designed by Lingít and Athabascan designer Rico Lanáat’ Worl.
Verrelli said the city is currently working to find temporary locations nearby to relocate the vendors that typically set up shop in the park, like Bernadette’s barbecue stand and Carrillo’s Caldo stand.
The construction will have winter and summer routes for pedestrians to follow, and Verrelli said there will be plenty of signage in the area to direct people.
