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The boardwalk between Seventh and Sixth streets will be removed and replaced in a project that starts Monday (Oct. 20) and is expected to be complete by early April.
For Ocean City visitors, it was a sight to behold: a block of the Ocean City Boardwalk obliterated — with nothing but sand filling the gap between the surviving sections.
A project to replace the Ocean City Boardwalk between Fifth and Sixth streets nears completion in February 2014.
For runners and riders, it meant a little detour that added a bit to the five-mile round trip they knew so well.
That was the scene last winter when the city started the first phase of a multi-year project to replace the Ocean City Boardwalk and its substructure between Fifth and 12th streets. Work to replace one block of the boardwalk between Fifth and Sixth streets was completed by early April.
Work to replace a second block of boardwalk begins on Monday (Oct. 20), according to Jim Mallon, assistant to Mayor Jay Gillian.
A construction contractor will begin work to demolish and replace the boardwalk from Sixth Street to Plaza Place (just north of Seventh Street). The boardwalk will be closed to through traffic likely starting sometime this month.
Boardwalk detour during a construction project between Sixth and Seventh streets that starts on Oct. 20.
A detour will take pedestrians and cyclists off the Boardwalk at Seventh Street, down Wayne Avenue, through the municipal parking lot between Sixth and Fifth streets, and back to the boardwalk at Fifth Street.
City Council this summer awarded a $1.2 million contract to Fred M. Schiavone Construction of Malaga to complete the work. Schiavone was the contractor for the first phase of the project between Fifth and Sixth streets and for the new Welcome Center on the Route 52 causeway.
Council has authorized spending up to $1,825,000 on this phase of the project.
The project specifications call for using a stock of southern yellow pine that has been stored in Ocean City since the settlement of a lawsuit with the Louis J. Grasmick Lumber Co. of Baltimore in 2009.
The city has long sought an alternative to pine for its boardwalk. The soft wood splits, cracks and exposes nails or screws after relatively short periods of time. The city has studied and tested many alternatives but has found none both suitable and cost-effective.
But the existing stock of southern yellow pine is thicker (three inches) and sturdier that the pine used on other sections of the boardwalk, and the city administration says it is “optimistic” that it will hold up much better.
The boardwalk project will include reconfiguring the boardwalk ramp at Sixth Street, eliminating the north ramp and widening the south ramp. The access ramp for the disabled will remain in place, leading to the municipal parking lot between Fifth and Sixth streets. The work is expected to be complete by spring.
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