Why haven’t we seen construction workers at old Pineland Station lately?

Construction of Sea Turtle Marketplace, the shopping center set to replace Pineland Station on Hilton Head Island, was halted on May 10 and is not expected to resume until mid-July because of changes in tenant requests and for financial reasons, according to the development’s contractor.

Tommy Smith, president of Sandcastle Constructors, said he was asked to stop work while the Virginia Beach, Va.-based developer, Wheeler Real Estate Co., restructured the “balance of their financing for the project.”

“I’m not going to reschedule until I get a notice to proceed,” he said. “Based on the original schedule, that’s about 60 days’ delay.”

Changes to interior plans made by retailers PetSmart and Kitchen & Company, both future anchors of Sea Turtle, have contributed to the delay, Smith said, but the project is ready to proceed from his end.

“All the subcontractors are waiting to roll,” he said.

As of Wednesday afternoon, Wheeler Real Estate Co. had not answered a request for comment.

Regular customers at the Starbucks and employees at the newly renovated Stein Mart located in the same plaza first noticed the lack of progress in the vacant lot next door during the past month.

Morgan Waters, an assistant manager at Stein Mart, said she had assumed construction stopped at the mid-island plaza because of the tourist season.

“I’m eager to have it done. As a company we want it to flourish, but it just kind of dwindled down,” she said. “I’d love to see some business back in Hilton Head. So much is on the south end.”

At the site, an empty trailer rests at the far edge of 430 William Hilton Parkway. Wet pieces of lumber, piles of pipes, abandoned insulation supplies and a lone, skeletal building structure are the only remnants of activity on the construction site.

A portion of a barbed-wire fence that prevented entrance to a lagoon behind Stein Mart, which is within walking distance of the Oaks Villas apartment complex, lay flat on the ground. After inquiries from The Island Packet, the Town of Hilton Head contacted the contractor. A temporary fence has since been constructed to block access to the trench of water, according to the contractor.

Previously, developers reported that more than 90 percent of tenants were committed to joining Sea Turtle Marketplace.

The retail center was projected to open in the fall. It is unclear whether the delay in construction will affect that timeline.

This story was originally published June 8, 2016 at 4:53 PM with the headline "Why haven’t we seen construction workers at old Pineland Station lately?."