CAPE CHARLES, Va. — The Town of Cape Charles is preparing to reassign its long-running harbor engineering contract from Langley & McDonald, Inc. (L&M) to McPherson Design Group, Inc. (MDG), a transition officials say will keep a major waterfront project on track even as L&M’s principal steps back from the business.
For years, L&M has served as the Town’s engineering partner on a string of harbor improvements, including offshore breakwaters, floating docks in the outer harbor, an inshore breakwater, and rehabilitation of the inner harbor bulkhead. The firm has also handled broader planning work for the harbor, including master planning, wave modeling, and capital asset evaluation studies.
That relationship is now changing. Tom Langley, L&M’s principal, is winding down the business and no longer accepting new task orders, according to Town officials. Rather than starting from scratch with a new engineering firm, the Town is looking to hand the existing contract off to MDG, a full-service design and engineering firm that already knows the harbor’s projects well.
MDG is not a stranger to the work. The firm has served as L&M’s structural engineering subconsultant on several harbor projects, including the inshore breakwater and the bulkhead rehabilitation, and it was involved in the initial design work for planned inner harbor improvements — most notably a proposed floating dock that is next up on the Town’s capital projects list.
The FY 2027 budget includes funding to complete design and engineering work to replace the inner harbor’s fixed pier with a floating dock, with construction penciled into the Capital Improvement Plan for FY 2028. Town officials also plan to apply for an Aid to Local Ports grant from the Virginia Port Authority in March 2027 to help fund construction.
Given that timeline, officials say keeping the design work moving without interruption is a priority. Because MDG already has institutional knowledge of the inner harbor design from its earlier subconsultant role, Town staff argue that assigning the contract to MDG — rather than rebidding it — would let the floating dock design and engineering move forward “in an expeditious manner” and keep the Town on pace to submit its grant application next spring.
Both L&M and MDG have indicated they are amenable to the contract assignment.
While the Town Manager has authority to approve professional services contracts up to $30,000, this project — along with future harbor improvements expected to follow — is projected to exceed that threshold. As a result, the assignment requires action from the Town Council.
The recommendation before the Council is to authorize the Town Manager to formally assign the harbor improvements engineering services contract from Langley & McDonald, Inc. to McPherson Design Group, Inc., allowing work on the inner harbor floating dock project to continue without a gap in engineering support.
This report is based on materials provided to the Cape Charles Town Council regarding the harbor engineering services contract.
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