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Friday, March 29, 2024

Town roadway, streetscape improvements coming

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Improvements to the roadways and streetscapes of Wrightsville Beach are both close to finishing and about to begin.

In a partnership between the North Carolina Department of Transportation and the Town of Wrightsville Beach, the beautification of the town’s entryway project on the east side of the Heide Trask Drawbridge is almost complete.

The project includes a series of plant beds and mulch from the edge of the bridge to just past the Causeway Drive and Keel Street intersection where crews from Good Earth Associates installed three garden walls made of concrete retaining blocks.

The next areas of concentration for the plan were the eastern front portion of the median between Causeway Drive and Old Causeway Drive, and the head of the median dividing Causeway Drive and West Salisbury Street.

The edges of those medians are now outlined with 6-inch cobblestone pavers and Tifway 419 Bermuda sod. Other small plants included in the median areas are drought- and salt-tolerant varietals like dwarf yaupon, red oleander, Little Richard abelia, Japanese yew, daylily, juniper, muhly grass and sage. The larger trees featured in those medians are crape myrtles and live oaks.

Town manager Tim Owens said there are still a few loose ends for crews to address and he will hear the timetable for the project’s completion in a meeting with NCDOT Monday, Oct. 6. The project will remain a state-maintained area for a full year until it is transferred to the town’s responsibility.

An additional improvement coming in that area pending approval by NCDOT is the up lighting of the live oaks lining both sides of Causeway Drive east of the drawbridge. Owens said the Wrightsville Beach Foundation would help fund the lighting if the work is approved.

Further east, the repaving of Waynick Boulevard by Barnhill Contracting Company is set to begin as early as Oct. 6, with a completion deadline of Nov. 14. The repaving will cover the entirety of Waynick Boulevard from its intersection with Causeway Drive to Sunset Avenue. Crews will work on the repaving between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. on weekdays with more restrictive times around busier intersections.

Owens said town public works crews would begin working ahead of the repaving to replace cast iron water lines with new PVC pipes.

“We are going to try to get out in front of them to complete some water line improvements,” Owens said during a Tuesday, Sept. 30 phone interview. “We have one particular span on Sunset Avenue where we actually need to get into the roadbed but most of it will be outside the roadbed.”

Town staff will also look for direction from the Wrightsville Beach Board of Aldermen on streetscape projects on the north end of Waynick Boulevard at the board’s Thursday, Oct. 9 meeting.

The area of concentration encompasses the downtown Wrightsville Beach central business district and Owens said the board would need to provide direction on the Waynick to Stone Street intersection project that was already granted funding of $250,000 in Surface Transportation Project-Direct Attributable funding.

The town provided a match of $40,000 for the project and Owens said the board needs to decide whether it wants to move forward with crosswalk and minor cosmetic improvements to the intersection, which would be covered by the $290,000 fund, or if it wants to move that funding to a larger downtown project that could include burying utilities underground.

The Wrightsville Beach Foundation will unveil the finalized vision for a comprehensive downtown beautification plan during the board’s Oct. 9 meeting, which could provide the board with ideas for improvements in the area.

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