FENWICK ISLAND – Officials say more than $600,000 in state funding is expected to benefit major infrastructure projects in Fenwick Island.
During a Fenwick Island Town Council meeting last Friday, Mayor Vicki Carmean, council president, announced the town had recently received more than $600,000 to further the town’s infrastructure improvement projects.
She noted the municipality had received an additional $350,000 state funding for a dredging project in the neighboring Little Assawoman Bay, as well as an additional $250,000 for the construction of sidewalks along Coastal Highway.
“I do think these projects will soon be shovel ready, and we’re getting set to go forward with them …,” she said. “There are some other grants pending, and we will keep you posted on what happens there.”
Both infrastructure projects remain at the top of Fenwick Island’s capital improvement plan, officials acknowledged in the town’s recent budget adoption.
In 2019, the town council agreed to hire Anchor QEA to provide design, bidding and construction management services for a dredging project to address shoaling in the back-bay system.
That same year, Fenwick Island initiated the first phase of its sidewalk construction project, which includes the roughly six bayside blocks south of James Street. Instead of pursing a state-led project – which had a cost estimate of roughly $10 million – town officials decided to handle the first phase of the project themselves and worked alongside state legislators to secure bond bill funding.
“I’d like to tell you it costs $50,000 or $60,000 per block, but it doesn’t work that way in today’s world,” Carmean said last week. “We’re working with government regulations and they have all sorts of mandates, and we know what has happened to the price of materials. We’re just going to go with the money we have and take it as far as we can go.”
Carmean also announced last week that Fenwick had recently received $36,452 in state aid to maintain the town’s streets.
“At this point we have quite a bit of money,” she said. “It’s not a lot, but enough to do some streets. So we will be looking to see where we need to make the repairs.”
During public comments, former Dredging Committee member Charlie Hastings urged council members to maintain a good working relationship with the Carl M. Freeman Companies, which has agreed to relocate roughly 12,000 cubic feet of dredged material to one of its properties. He pointed out that new council members have recently voiced their objections to the company’s proposed hotel development off Route 54.
“If they decide to pull out of this agreement to take our dredged materials this project will not happen. Nobody else will take this stuff and we have no other place to put it …,” he said. “While knowing the new council members have voiced their objections to the proposed Freeman hotel on Route 54, and especially knowing the project is outside of town, I’d like to ask the council to possibly tread lightly in dealing with Freeman, which could mean the difference between dredging and not dredging. You have to walk that line.”
