Work on a new seawall at Higgins Beach in Scarborough is almost done and is coming in at or under budget, town officials say.

Crews from Cape Ann Equipment of North Andover, Mass., last week finished building the wall’s granite steps, said Scarborough Public Works Director Mike Shaw, and will continue work in April to finish paving the sidewalk and landscaping.

“It’s almost there,” Shaw said, noting that completion is expected by late April.

The project has remained within the $650,000 budget, but a final cost was not available yet, he said.

The project evolved after the 2007 Patriot’s Day storm damaged the original wall, which was built decades ago to minimize shore erosion.

“We had two options at that point,” Shaw said. “We could repair it by piecing it back together or we could take funds to rebuild the wall that was not originally designed by an engineer firm and had some flaws to begin with.”

Last February, the Scarborough Town Council agreed to bond $450,000 for the project. Also, because the Patriot’s Day storm caused the damage, the Federal Emergency Agency made available to the town a $214,000 grant.

“It was a good deal for the town and it needed to be rebuilt,” Scarborough Town Councilor Michael Wood said.

The old seawall, which dates from the 1960s, runs approximately 750 feet, from Pearl Street to the Breakers Inn. The new one is about 500 feet long and about street-level height, Shaw said.

Shaw describes the new construction as “a fitted rock wall designed so that the size of the stone (in the wall) takes into account the forces of the ocean.”

A year-round staircase and a sidewalk on the ocean side of Bayview are also part of the project, Wood said.

Construction crews work diligently to finish placing the the granite steps to the new Higgins Beach Wall that the 2007 Patriot’s Day storm damaged. Work on the $650,000 Higgins Beach Wall, which the 2007 Patriot’s Day storm heavily damaged, is almost complete as construction crews last week place the wall’s granite steps.