TRAFFIC ALERT: Portion of Front St. to be restored to brick

WILMINGTON, N.C. (WECT) - The City of Wilmington has announced work to restore a section of South Front Street to be a brick street will begin Monday, Sept. 18.

On S. Front St. between Queen and Castle streets, crews will be removing existing asphalt over what currently is a partial base layer of bricks, fixing existing bricks and adding new bricks for a fully rehabilitated brick street.

“Traffic control measures will be in place with advanced warning at the intersection of Front and Nun Streets as well as the intersection of Front and Burnett Streets,” the city announced. “A message board will be placed at the intersection of Carolina Beach Rd and West Lake Shore Drive. The official detour route will be Surry St but there are multiple different ways that motorists can take.”

The project is estimated to take eight to 10 weeks.

“It’s just really a classic story of when you dig and historic downtown Wilmington, you don’t always know what you’re going to find,” said Wilmington Spokesperson Dylan Lee.

The project was previously scheduled to begin the week of Sept. 5 but Tropical Storm Idalia delayed the start.

“The city has allocated money towards the brick rehabilitation of the streets and in this year’s budget, there’s $900,000 dedicated to that,” said Lee. “This would be the second block that we’ve taken on in this fiscal year, and we anticipate being able to do at least one more with this year’s budget and then we just keep clawing away year after year.”

Lee says the road will be closed for the duration of the project, aside from the end of business hours on the first day of the project: Monday, Sept. 18 and possibly Tuesday, Sept. 19.

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