Wilmington residents were able to take part in updating the city’s policy for brick streets Feb. 17 and 18, and they agreed the high cost of maintaining and installing the bricks was worth conserving the streets’ character and beauty, especially in the downtown historic district.
Downtown Wilmington has about four miles of street made from historic brick pavers laid in the early 1900s. After a century of use, many of the roads are now patched with asphalt and uneven, but the city’s policy governing their maintenance needs to be updated, said Dave Mayes, the city’s public services director. The policy was created 29 years ago in 1987.
The new policy will be shaped by public forums like those held Feb. 17 and 18 as well as by a Historic Preservation Committee work session. The policy will be presented to the Wilmington City Council by late spring.
Cost is one of the biggest hurdles to installing the historic bricks. The price of buying one block’s worth of historic bricks is $130,000 and installing them is another $120,000. Purchasing and installing asphalt is $45,000. Non-historic brick pavers are also available.
Maintaining the streets is also difficult, because many of them have been patched with asphalt. Removing the asphalt is challenging and expensive, Mayes said. In some places the asphalt covers large stretches of the road and in other spots asphalt has been used to patch a small area after the bricks have been removed to make repairs to the utilities below.
Underground utilities will also present problems, Mayes added, because they are as old as the bricks above them.
“It’s not a matter of if those utilities are going to need to be replaced, but when,” he said.
The new policy must also take into account updated ADA requirements and how to address the curbing. Most brick streets have granite curbing, which tends to sink, Mayes said, so replacing or resetting the curbing should be part of rebuilding a brick street.
After learning about the considerations in updating the policy, residents — many of whom lived downtown on brick streets — offered opinions. The consensus, repeated several times, was “we love our brick streets.”
They also agreed brick streets in the historic district should be prioritized during the process of maintaining the streets. Not only do the bricks add historic character to the neighborhood, residents said, but they also last longer than pavement and allow stormwater runoff to drain through.
Since the city’s supply of historic brick is limited — it has enough spare bricks for about one block — another issue is whether bricks should be removed from streets with only a few bricks in order to complete streets with more bricks. One group of residents said bricks should be taken from streets less than halfway covered with bricks and given to streets more than halfway covered.
As far as the cost, they said the benefits of the brick streets should somewhat offset the cost and that should be taken into account. They suggested the brick streets could create more tourism revenue, attract certain film productions and cause real estate values to go up.
Whether a street is located in a commercial or residential location could also affect how to maintain it, Mayes added. In that case, several residents felt residential streets should receive higher priority.
The city council will have the final vote on the policy in late spring.
email [email protected]
