After Years Of Delays, New Harbormaster Building Moves Ahead

After 12 years of planning, discussion, and several delays, the town may be close to finally replacing the Nantucket Harbormaster’s building at the town pier at 34 Washington Street.

Despite appropriating money for the project multiple times, the costs of constructing a new building kept coming in higher than anticipated, preventing the start of construction. But new plans for the Harbormaster Building have been filed with the Historic District Commission, which could be a sign that the project is moving closer to becoming a reality.

Representatives of the town, including project manager Charlie Gibson, the island’s deputy police chief, failed to respond to multiple requests for comment from the Current and did not answer any questions. Harbormaster Sheila Lucey referred all questions to Gibson

The harbormaster building is used to oversee and monitor activities in Nantucket’s harbor and on the waterfront, and serves as Lucey’s headquarters. It is also includes a public restroom and shower facility. The facility, however, is showing its age. Built in 1988, portions of the structure are in disrepair, including the deck facing the town pier and the harbor, which can no longer be used. 

Because town representatives refused to reply to questions about the project, many details are still unknown. Once regulatory approvals and constructions bids are received, work is set to begin in September of 2026 and finish in May of 2027.

“I would personally like to get this built,” Select Board chair Dawn Hill said in September, when the project went before the Select Board. “I think it is heavily used and needed.”

According to the presentation Gibson gave the Select Board in September, the town initially estimated the cost of a new building at around $2.5 million in 2015. By 2019, the town appropriated $3.45 million in funding, but when they put the project out to bid in 2021, the lowest bid came in at $4.8 million. After COVID-19 delayed the project, another $2 million was appropriated in 2022, bringing the total available funds to $5.45 million, but the only bid they received was for $8.9 million.

Gibson said that the town reevaluated the project and came back with a plan to reduce costs in 2024 that they believed could be accomplished for $6.1 million, if bids don’t come back much higher than expected yet again.

“Things go up,” former Select Board member Malcolm MacNab said at the time. “Money seems to escalate.”

In October, Gibson wasn’t sure where the remaining funds would come from. It seems they may have come from the town’s budget as an expense increase request.

The website for the project says that it was approved at the 2026 Annual Town Meeting and election. $1.5 million in funding for the project was listed as an expense increase request in the town’s annual budget book and was recommended in the final report of a town committee tasked with evaluating capital projects—which also listed the cost estimate at $6.7 million, not $6.1 million—but did not explicitly appear in a list of increase requests presented to the Select Board or in the Town Meeting warrant or local election ballot.

The Finance Committee later amended a Town Meeting article seeking funding for capital requests by adding $2 million, not $1.5 million, for the Harbormaster building. This amendment was made too late to be printed in the warrant.