The Town of Saint Andrews has voted to cancel the tender for Market Wharf and Market Square based on all the bids coming in over tender.

The project is a hybrid steel pile and infill that would help refurbish the first third of the wharf, but also extensively expand the footprint of Market Square by roughly four times.

The project has sparked a large amount of controversy in recent months from both seasonal and full-time residents.

Tenders came in

On Sept. 10, several bids came into the town from construction companies that were all considered more than the estimated costs for the project.

Six tenders were opened in the full-view of the public.

• Valley Structures Ltd: $17 million
• Dexter Construction: $12.1 million
• Caldwell and Ross Ltd: $9.4 million
• Fundy Contractors Ltd: $13.4 million
• Greenfield Construction: $13.5 million
• Graystone Infrastructure Inc: $12.2 million

The project was estimated at $7.9 million. Acting Mayor Kate Akagi told The Courier back in July “if it is over our price line, we won’t be doing it.”

Several councillors expressed they felt they couldn’t support moving forward based on the overall costs of the project.

Coun. Darrell Weare said given his experience, he expected the project to come in over tender.

“Now, I know deep inside, I’m making the right decision, no question,” he said to a packed council chamber, which was met with applause.

Coun. Kurt Gumushel also voted in favour of cancelling the tender despite his earlier assertions the project had to move forward.

“If there was no chance to pump the brakes on this project, I would wholeheartedly support awarding the tender at this time,” he said. “However, given the information that the deadline for the federal funding is not a hard deadline, I think we can hold off on awarding the tender and revisit some of the design phase based on the significant public pushback.

“We were going to do the visioning exercise for what the wharf and the town square would look like after the project was done when we should have started with the vision exercise … so that was a bit of a mistake.”

Gumushel did warn that if the wharf “did fall into the sea,” he wanted the public to know that he did everything he could to “quickly and efficiently” rebuild the wharf.

Acting Mayor Kate Akagi said the council always knew if it came in over tender, the project wouldn’t move forward.

“We’re getting dozens of letters, pro and against, the wharf,” she said. “We’re not letting the wharf go, it is an asset for the town, for the municipality of Saint Andrews, so we need it.”

Deadline contradicted

In June, council was told by town staff the money needed to be spent and the project underway by March 2026, which was one of the reasons the council pushed ahead with the project despite feedback from the community.

“We can continue doing the project if it is in place and moving forward past the March 2026 deadline, because we’re showing we’re finishing the project,” said Paul Nopper, the town’s former clerk. “But basically we’ve been told, March 2026, if you haven’t done anything, you lose the funding.”

On Sept. 3 and 4, The Courier reached out to the other two levels of government involved in providing and allocating the money for those projects.

The federal government said it had imposed no deadline on the projects in Saint Andrews, apart from the October 2033 set out in the bilateral agreement.

The province’s Regional Development Council also confirmed the deadline was not March 2026, but March 2027. It also stated that could be extended if the municipality provided a justifiable reason.

It confirmed the town wouldn’t lose the funding either if an extension application was filed, provided it was “substantially” completed by the 2033 deadline.

Some councillors had cited this was a significant part of rationale for moving forward with the design. The council was informed of the “flexibility” in the deadline by Chief Administrative Officer Chris Spear on Sept. 8.

“We do have some extra time potentially but it doesn’t change the underlying facts,” he told the council in the meeting. “It wasn’t what I thought it was a month ago,” he said. “They have a little more flexibility.”

Akagi, who only became acting mayor in June due to a resignation from Brad Henderson, said she is unaware of where the original March 2026 date originated from.

“Whether it was government changes or whatever, we were following what we knew was correct,” she said. “Staff and ourselves, we are trying to get our wharf to a point where we could use it all the time.”

Public reaction

At multiple points during the meeting, the crowd clapped in response to various councillors’ answers. The reaction following the unanimous vote was jubilant.

David Bizzo said he thinks the vote was the greatest thing that has ever happened to Saint Andrews.

“All they have to do is fix the wharf. They do not have to put four more Market Squares in there with all this asphalt, concrete and stone,” he said. “We won for a little while.”

Steve Saunders, an engineer and resident in the town, has opposed the project.

“The good guys won,” he said. “So rare.”

He said he believes the town needs to hire a more reliable engineering company and bring in someone who can provide a quality design for the wharf.

“Defacing the whole town with this whole pile of rocks, it was going to be their legacy, and it wasn’t going to be a really good future.”

Jessie Davies brought several signs to the meeting.

“No infill. Preserve the beauty and heritage of Saint Andrews,” one sign said. “Deadline? March 2026. No more Bum’s Rush!”

She said she thinks people are happy with the decision.

“We believed the council listened to the community,” she said. “We’re really happy they’re dedicated to the wharf and the community.”

Akagi said the next step is to assess the wharf damage, which the council believes could be extensive. No assessment has been done since 2018.

It remains unclear if the current council will be the one to decide the final outcome of the wharf before the general election in May 2026.

“We have to work together. We have to collaborate to make it work, if we’re divided, it won’t work,” she said.