The costly process of repairing a cracked portion of a wall along High Street is underway in Jim Thorpe Borough.

Council unanimously voted Thursday to have engineers begin preparing bid specifications for the soil nail stabilization of 200 feet of the wall.Borough Manager Maureen Sterner will also begin contacting banks to try and secure funding.One estimate to repair the wall came in just shy of $700,000.Water is seeping inside and busting the wall out.Earlier this year, officials estimated the crack has grown from 2 inches to around 6 or 7 inches and were concerned about the potential for collapse.Kim Mazur, of Entech Engineering, said grant money for the project is pretty slim, but getting funds through a Pennsylvania Department of Transportation program is an option."The only issue is it is a 30 percent match by the borough, but they won't make a decision until November or December as to whether your application would be successful or not," Mazur told council.Putting the project off for even just another year concerned council members."I don't think we can wait on it," Councilman John McGuire said. "I think we need to do something as soon as possible."Two contractors visited the site to look at the wall, with one telling the borough the 200-foot length had to be repaired."They wouldn't just do that worst 50 feet because they feared what would happen to the rest of it when they got in there to start working," Jim Thorpe Public Services Manager Vince Yaich said. "The only way the contractor would do that is if the borough would sign off that they wouldn't be responsible if something happened."According to Mazur, Entech will work with Earth Engineering, a firm with experience dealing with issues such as wall stabilization."The nail stabilization is less expensive than the other option, which would be a complete tear down of the wall and rebuild," Mazur said. "Tearing down the wall would mean relocating the utilities in the road."Engineering for the project is expected to cost around $60,000.