The Portage Cove Harbor. (Gabe Thomas)

The Portage Cove Harbor. (Gabe Thomas)

Haines Borough staff say they are pleasantly surprised by bids for construction on the first phase of the small boat harbor expansion.

“I was shocked,” said Public Facilities Director Brad Ryan.

He was happy to see multiple bids that included all of the possible add alternates under the $15 million budget.

The phase one work includes harbor basin dredging, a steel wave barrier, moorage pile replacement and an uplands parking area. The add alternates include additional dredging, sacrificial pile anodes, and extending the wave barrier.

Six companies submitted bids for the project. The lowest is from Seattle-based Pacific Pile & Marine. Its estimated price is about $13.2 million, including all the add alternates.

“We thought we had about $15 million for construction. Pacific Pile came in with all the add alternates at $13.2 million, which left us about $1.7 million for construction to either accommodate change orders or anything that may happen with the project, or use it for further development of the harbor,” Ryan said.

A resolution to award the contract to Pacific Pile is set to go before the assembly at its Nov. 8 meeting.

The borough’s goal is to complete work on phase one of the harbor expansion by May of 2018.