ORANGE BEACH, Ala. – Sebastian Haddaway hadn’t fished one of his favorite spots in almost seven months and made the trip from Daleville to Orange Beach to wet a hook.

He still hasn’t fished his favorite spot.

“I don’t really fish on this side,” he said from a perch on the north side of the pass. “The best fishing’s over there because there’s much more fish activity.”

“Over there” was fenced off. The popular Perdido Pass seawall, frequented by fisherman and great blue herons alike, has been shut off for months due to erosion that has made the area unsafe.

The fence runs from the north side of the bridge all the way under and around to where the railing ends. Haddaway and a friend were on the north side of the pass right where the fencing ended.

“Not cool,” Haddaway said. “At all.”

It’s not likely to change anytime soon. The Alabama Department of Transportation is in the preliminary planning stages for repairing the popular spot, but it likely will be almost two years before it’s complete.

Right now officials estimate the cost to be between $7 million and $10 million.

 “We are currently working on a set of plans,” ALDOT Ninth District Pre-Construction Engineer Don Powell said. “We are about 50 percent and we are still working on exactly what we want to do out there, how we want to handle it. It’s still in the engineering phase.”

The rest of the year will be spent completing those plans and Powell expects bids to be let the summer of 2013.

“Typically it's two months after we let a project for a contractor to get started,” Powell said. “We’ll try to let it in July or August which starts it either the first of October or first of November. We’ll try and work around the tourism as much as possible.”

Actual build time is unknown at this point, but Powell believes it will take at least a year.

“We’ve got to replace the entire steel seawall, put a new concrete cap on it and go from there,” Powell said. “Right now we’re trying to work out the best way to fix it and most economical. Money drives a lot of things right now. We’re just trying to figure out what exactly we can do, what’s going to be the easiest to build and most economical.”

All of that is bad news for Paul Redman, manager at Go Fishin’ about a quarter mile east of the pass.

“It’s shut a large portion of our business down,” Redman said. “It’s a large portion of our business. It’s like having a state pier down the road.”

Another business planned for the area has scaled back its scope. Shaul Zislin, owner of the Hangout in Gulf Shores and the Surf Style beach stores, wants to put a restaurant east of the pass. The Outrigger was located there before a storm took it out.

Developers hope to build "The Gulf at Alabama Point Restaurant," with a capacity of 600. Officials say it will combine casual dining and sport fishing. A strip of city property will become a boardwalk.

But until the pass wall is fixed, Zislin and partners are converting shipping crates into a restaurant that will have outdoor seating.

“As it is right now the existing wall is falling apart, hence the reason we’ve got it all fenced off,” Powell said. “You can see where material’s getting pulled out and sinking.”

Coastal Resources Director Phillip West of Orange Beach has been hearing complaints about the closed area.

“It’s so important to this community and to shore-bound fisherman,” he said. “And just people to watch the pass. They watch the boats come in. With Shaul (Zislin) doing his project there, we’d like to have that thing open, active and really have that spot back.

“There’s no other place like that in the state but right there. Perdido Pass is certainly, in my mind, one of the most scenic spots in the state.”

West said he is helping the state apply for National Research Damage Assessment grant administered by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. RESTORE Act money could also come into play.

Powell says some new techniques will be used to hopefully make the new wall more durable.

“The rust comes from oxidizing and with the water splashing on them, the salt water eroding them,” he said. “They will be coated. We will have something called the cathodic protection. It puts a charge on the metal and it helps dramatically reduce the amount of rust that occurs.”

But the nature of the pass, Powell says, will cause wear and still require maintenance in the future.

“We will be taking measures to try and insure and extend the life of the new structure as much as we can,” he said. “I don’t know if we’ll ever stop it completely.”

To see a gallery of pictures from the pass, go here: http://www.gulfcoastnewstoday.com/gallery/collection_bf8a7b7a-0e50-11e2-a9f3-001a4bcf887a.html