Nahant town wharf project put out to bid again

NAHANT – Work on the Nahant town wharf isn’t expected to get underway until fall.Town Administrator Mark Cullinan said he initially had hoped the wharf could be rebuilt before the start of the 2009 boating season, but when the project was initially put out to bid last fall none of the marine contractors who took out bid documents submitted a bid.Cullinan recently put the project out to bid again. He said bids are due June 15 and he hopes work would commence in the fall.Cullinan said the pier/wharf area was destroyed by a severe coastal storm in 1978 and it was rebuilt at that time. In 1993 the “No Name Storm” that ravaged the eastern United States wiped out the pier at the end of the wharf, which was rebuilt in 1993.”With the exception of repairing the wharf after storms, very little work has been done on the wharf,” he said.Cullinan said Childs Engineering Corporation conducted a complete assessment of the town pier including using scuba divers for underwater inspection and much of the pier needs to be rebuilt due to degradation of the underlying supports.In April 2008, Town Meeting approved using Community Preservation Act (CPA) funds to pay for the project, which is expected to cost approximately $600,000. Cullinan said rebuilding the wharf itself is expected to cost approximately $400,000. In addition, he expects it would cost $200,000 to replace the structure that sits on the wharf, which houses the harbor master office and town sailing program offices.Cullinan said the CPA fund has approximately $200,000 in it, but the CPA allows communities to borrow money for projects and pay it back with CPA proceeds in future years.Cullinan said the town has applied for state stimulus funds for the project, but he is unsure if that funding would actually materialize.Under President Barack Obama’s $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, as much as $2 billion would be available for spending within the next year on “shovel-ready” infrastructure projects within the state. Cullinan said the wharf project is considered “shovel ready” and could be completed within the two-year window required to qualify for the stimulus money.