It took three rounds of bidding but the borough is on its way to installing a new, 300-foot-long float system at Meyers Chuck.
The Assembly last month awarded a $445,000 contract to Bellingham Marine Industries for the Washington state contractor to construct the 10-foot-wide wooden-decked floats, gangway and connection to the existing seaplane float in Meyers Chuck.
The work includes building and shipping everything to Wrangell, where the 50-foot-long sections will be stored at the Marine Service Center until a separate contract is issued next year to haul the floats to Meyers Chuck, sink new pilings and attach the floats to the pilings, explained Mike Howell, the borough’s senior project director.
The new float sections should arrive in Wrangell in the spring, with the on-site construction work bid in the spring and the project wrapped up by late summer or fall, he said.
Bellingham Marine Industries was the lowest of four bids for the floats construction, with the others ranging up to $748,888. All of the bidders were Washington state contractors.
The entire project — building and installing the floats — will be covered by a $1.092 million state grant which requires matching funds from the borough. The borough will draw on its Port and Harbors fund for its share.
Earlier attempts to contract out the floats failed when no one bid in the first round in August and a bid protest scuttled the second round.
Though the borough had considered building a 400-foot-long float, it scaled back the size to reduce costs. The existing float system is 400 feet long but is in poor condition. The floats are almost 60 years old, attached to steel pilings almost 40 years old.
Meyers Chuck, about 50 miles south of Wrangell, has about two dozen year-round residents and is a popular stopover for summer boaters touring Southeast. It became part of the Wrangell borough in 2008. The state turned over the dock to the borough in 2014.
