PORT TOWNSEND — Caicos Corp. is expected to move a pile-pulling barge into Hudson Point Marina on Thursday, launching the Port of Port Townsend’s $3.5 million marina renovation project.

“They’re expecting to have all the pilings out by Friday,” said Port Executive Director Larry Crockett, who was in a celebratory mood Tuesday morning on the eve of actual work on the project.

Planning and preparation for the renovation of the popular marina has taken four years.

During the past two years, the project has been tied up in the federal, state and local permit process.

Caicos workers were already in Port Townsend last week, working for the state Department of Natural Resources on a project to clean up pilings along the city’s tidelands, from Hudson Point to Boat Haven Marina.

Pulling pilings

Beginning Thursday, the company will pull 174 pilings in the marina, dismantling and removing old docks.

Then, Crockett said, the docks that will remain at the marina will be moved to the center of the marina to make way for a barge to dredge around the marina’s perimeter.

Old concrete riprap — installed to prevent erosion — along the perimeter of the marina, will be replaced with natural rocks.

Workers on the dredging barge will remove 11,000 cubic yards of dredge material, which will be hauled away to be dumped at an approved location.

Port workers on Monday and Tuesday were already removing dock hardware, such as mooring cleats from dilapidated docks that will be replaced.

The hardware will be reused in docks at either Hudson Point or Boat Haven marinas, said Crockett.