Bay delays marina contract
By Dwayne Bremer
Oct 5, 2012, 22:46
The Bay St. Louis city council was expected to award a contract for it's $21 million harbor project on Wednesday, but the vote was pushed back another two weeks just before the meeting began.
The bids for the harbor project were accepted six weeks ago. The low bidder was Gill's Crane and Dozer Service of Slidell with a bid of $21,689,944.38 for the entire project, which was about $1 million more than the city was expecting.
According to the agenda for Tuesday's meeting, the city plans to award the project to Gill's Crane and Dozer Service.
Bay St. Louis Mayor Les Fillingame said the latest delay was merely a precaution.
Fillingame said the city had only allocated about $20.5 million for the harbor project. The remainder of the cash needed to complete the project would come from other projects budget's being adjusted.
Fillingame said he believed all of the necessary budget modifications were complete; however, one final modification needed to be done.
"We thought we were going to have it last Friday," Fillingame said. "We just wanted to be cautious and make sure all of the money is in hand."
Fillingame said the paperwork should be completed this week.
"I'm sure we will be able to ask the council for a vote by the next meeting at the latest," he said.
The project consists of building a 168-slip harbor/marina and rebuilding the Jimmy Rutherford Pier.
Construction is expected to take about 18 months.
The funds are expected to come from several different sources, including the Department of Housing and Urban Developments' Community Development Block Grants, FEMA, and other state and federal agencies.
"It is going to forever change the access to and from the water in downtown Bay St. Louis," Fillingame said.
