— — It has had more than 11 months to pick a winner, but the Niagara Parks Commission says its evaluation team needs more time.

More than a year and a half after a long-term operator for boat tours at the base of the Horseshoe Falls was originally supposed to be found, NPC officials said Thursday the team making the decision needs another “five or six weeks,” before announcing a winning bidder.

The deal will be worth a minimum of $5.5 million per year, not including the commission's share of annual revenue from ticket and souvenir sales.

Chairwoman Janice Thomson had said she expected to announce who would be awarded a 25-year lease to operate boat tours near the falls by the end of 2011, but she said the complex process to select a winner is still under way.

“Five or six weeks is what we're looking at. It’s difficult to pin it down because there are so many reviews that need to be done to finalize things and to move the recommendation forward,” she said. "We're in that stage where all the double checking is being done."

The process to award a contract for the boat tour lease on the Canadian side of the Niagara River has been one of the most controversial issues in the history of the parks commission.

In 2008, it quietly renewed the lease of the Maid of the Mist Steamboat Co., which has been running tours on the river since 1846. That decision, however, raised questions over why no other companies were invited to bid on the contract. Following an investigation by Ontario's Integrity Commissioner, the Liberal government killed the deal in October 2009 and ordered the NPC to put the lease out to tender.

In April 2010, 11 companies, including the Maid of the Mist Steamboat Co., Ripley Entertainment Inc. and Alcatraz Media Inc., registered as being interested in participating in the bidding process.

The 82-page RFP was finally released in August 2010 and companies were given until Jan. 31, 2011 to submit bids, including their preferred start dates of either May 1, 2012, 2013 or 2014.

After that deadline, then-NPC chairwoman Fay Booker said the commission expected to have a decision on who would be awarded the contract by the spring of 2011. That date was pushed back to the fall, and then to the end of 2011.

Thomson wouldn't reveal how many companies have bid on the contract or how many are still in the running.

The winning bidder will be selected on a number of factors, including how much rent they will pay for the use of the docks, their experience in boat tour operations, their financial strength and their ideas for how they can improve the services currently offered.

The Maid of the Mist Steamboat Co. has said it wants to continue operating the boat tours. The belief is that to do so, they'll have to pay the NPC more rent than they're currently paying them. Since the previous lease expired in 2009, the Maid of the Mist has been operating on a month-by-month basis as it awaits the commission's decision.

The winning operator will have to pay the commission a base annual rent of $5.5 million (escalating throughout the 25-year contract), a variable fee based on gross revenues, a 50 percent share of revenues from souvenir sales and whatever additional rent the bidders are willing to offer.

Because of the delay in selecting a winning bidder, it's unlikely a new tour company — if it's someone other than the existing Maid of the Mist Steamboat Co. — would be in place in time for the 2012 season.