Unalaska, AK – The city completed the removal of a dozen trailers on Loop Road. That housing will be replaced by a new 8-plex made for school, law enforcement, and city employees.

The Unalaska city council voted to remove the trailers last June, and the city has sold them to Offshore Systems Inc via a contractor. This weekend, the trailers were removed by Lakeview General Contracting and relocated to OSI.

Public Works director Nancy Peterson says that the lot improvements will begin in the next couple of weeks.

"The contractor is just now beginning the site work," says Peterson. "Now that the trailers have been removed, they're removing any other debris or any other components that have been installed in the ground. They'll be working on that over the next 30 days, as well as doing further excavation of the hill in order to be able to take advantage of as much of the lot as possible."

The foundation for the new 8-plex will be laid in May, and the completion date for the contractor is the end of October. Peterson says the removal of the trailers won't cause a housing crunch.

"The trailers had deteriorated to such a degree that they were not looked on favorably as housing, so we actually had six of the trailers vacant for at least the last year," says Peterson. "We will have housing for everyone who previously had it."

The current contract amount for the 8-plex is $4.1 million, and the Alaska Housing Finance Corporation has award a grant to the city to pay for 68% of the cost.