BAR HARBOR (AP) – The state plans to study the feasibility of building a pier to accommodate cruise ships, either at the Bay Ferries terminal or in a downtown location.

Scores of cruise ships stop in Bar Harbor during the busy summer tourism season, but there is no deep water pier where the ships can dock. The ships anchor well off the town pier and passengers are shuttled into town by private boat operators.

Some cruise lines, such as Carnival Cruises, refuse to stop in ports that do not have piers.

The study would not be conducted at least until fall and perhaps not until next year, according to Brian Nutter, Maine Port Authority executive director. “We’re looking at it, but we haven’t made any commitment to go forward,” Nutter said. “We do a lot of studies that we don’t go forward on.”

Nutter said the feasibility study would not be costly because much of the work could be done by staff. He said engineering and technical work would be contracted.

The new pier would have to be 400 to 500 feet long to service the number of large cruise ships that now stop in Bar Harbor, said Harbor Master Charlie Phippin.

But Bar Harbor Chamber of Commerce executive director Clare Bingham said the business community would oppose a new pier because passengers would get off the cruise ships and board directly to tour buses, bypassing the entire downtown business district.

A recent University of Maine study showed that cruise ship passengers pump about $12 million into the Bar Harbor economy annually.

Bingham said 50 percent of the passengers walk to the downtown when they arrive at the town pier.

The town also would lose the cruise ship fees that help finance the town pier and harbor operations. The larger ships pay $1,000 each to anchor off the Bar Harbor pier, Phippin said. Of the 72 ships scheduled to make stops in Bar Harbor this summer, only about a dozen are small enough to avoid the fee.