Town picks design for accessible playground
In November 2015, Wrightsville Beach was awarded a $300,000 grant from a regional healthcare organization to add handicap-accessible playground equipment to Wrightsville Beach Park, and Feb. 11 town leaders selected a playground design that should be installed by the end of May.
Trillium Health Resources awarded the Play Together Construction Grant, which funds inclusive equipment meant for people of all ages and abilities. The grant allowed some flexibility over the playground’s appearance, so the town solicited design concepts from five vendors.
During its Feb. 11 meeting, the board of aldermen chose a design from PlayWorld with a variety of brightly colored equipment including teeter-totters, domes, slides and a wheelchair-accessible swing called a Liberty Swing. The new playground will be constructed in the footprint of the existing equipment, which will be removed.
Parks and recreation program supervisor Katie Ryan said the department plans to move some of the old equipment to the Harbor Way Garden on the west side of Wrightsville Beach Park.
She said if all goes as planned, the playground would be constructed in early spring and be finished by May 15.
Creating more parking
During its 2016 retreat, Wrightsville’s board of aldermen identified two locations — Old Causeway Drive and Public Beach Access No. 1 — it could renovate to add as many as 80 new parking spaces, and during its meeting board members voted to allocate $15,000 to begin the permitting and engineering process for both projects.
The Old Causeway Drive project is further developed, town manager Tim Owens said, but even that would not be constructed until fall 2016 at the earliest. The north end project could be completed by summer 2017, he added, but both projects still have obstacles to overcome.
About 24 spaces could be added to the west end of Old Causeway Drive, he said, by changing the parking configuration from parallel to angled side-by-side. To make room for the spaces, which abut a North Carolina Department of Transportation right-of-way, the existing bike lane would have to be removed.
The estimated cost of the project is $50,000. Lanier Parking estimated the spots would produce $18,000 yearly in revenue.
The town could also add 55 spaces at the north end of the beach by adding angled spaces around the perimeter of the N. Lumina Avenue cul-de-sac in front of Shell Island Resort. Owens anticipated greater hurdles to completing that project, starting with permitting, because while the land is town-owned, N.C. DOT and various environmental agencies will have input.
Lanier Parking estimated the 55 spaces would produce $160,000 yearly in revenue. Mayor Bill Blair said he had already heard concerns about the project, so the town should hold a public hearing before it gets too far along.
Resurfacing Pelican Drive and W. Henderson Street
The aldermen voted to allow the town to hire paving contractor Highland Paving to resurface Pelican Drive and W. Henderson Street for $109,800.
The town budgeted $102,500 for resurfacing work this year but town manager Tim Owens said the extra cost could be absorbed into the town’s budget. The work will involve asphalt and concrete demolition and grading. Once resurfacing is complete, the roads will be relined just as they are now.
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