The Don Young Port of Alaska prepares for a historic overhaul to cargo terminal

KTUU News
By Joe Allgood

After over 60 years of existence, the Don Young Port of Alaska is already in the process of the largest change since its inception.

As part of the Port of Alaska Modernization Program, a contract for over $800 million in work was awarded by the municipality of Anchorage for a new terminal, meaning designs over a decade in the making will begin to take shape.

“This is probably the biggest infrastructure project that the state of Alaska has ever seen since maybe the Trans-Alaska pipeline,” said Port Director Steve Ribuffo. “It is that size in significance not only because of the cost, because of the magnitude of change in one place that’s going to happen over a decade.

“Nothing happens fast.”

The main impetus for the project is corrosion and age, prompting safety concerns.

“We were pretty old, and while it served us well, these are modern times, and the corrosion is something that needed to be dealt with,” Ribuffo said.

The port officially opened in 1961, only three years before the 1964 Good Friday earthquake. Since the earthquake did not damage the port as it did ports in Whittier, Seward, and Valdez, cargo traffic was redirected to Anchorage.

If another ’64-sized earthquake were to hit southcentral, Ribuffo is not so sure the port would survive.

Read Full Story Here:
https://www.alaskasnewssource.com/2025/04/24/port-alaska-prepares-historic-overhaul/