Boats at the Haines Portage Cove Harbor. (Emily Files)

Boats at the Haines Portage Cove Harbor. (Emily Files)

The Haines Portage Cove Harbor Expansion bid process has been delayed again. But this time, it’s because of inclement weather.

Borough Public Facilities Director Brad Ryan says he heard from potential bidders this week who were worried about getting their proposals in by Wednesday’s (Oct. 19) deadline.

“One company for sure yesterday called me and they were worried about their proposal getting here,” Ryan said. “It was sitting with [Alaska] Seaplanes and they weren’t sure it was going to fly on time. We got more than one call on that so we decided we would just give them an extra seven days. It doesn’t impact the timing of the project and we wanted to get as many bids as possible.”

The deadline is now Oct. 25 at 2 p.m.

The bid involves work on Phase 1 of the small boat harbor expansion. That includes harbor basin dredging, a steel wave barrier, moorage pile replacement and the uplands parking area. The work is estimated to cost $15 million.

The original deadline for construction bids was about a month ago – Sept. 21. But Borough Manager Bill Seward extended the deadline at the request of the planning commission.

Planners asked for the extension because of three citizen appeals of the manager’s decision to grant a land use permit for the harbor project. The planning commission recently heard those appeals and voted to uphold the permit. Two residents who appealed plan to take their cases to the borough assembly.

Now that the bid deadline has been extended again, Ryan says he hopes to get the harbor construction contract before the assembly at its Nov. 9 meeting.