By By MIKE VOSS
Contributing Editor
Washington is proceeding with plans to add more docks to its waterfront.
The approval to proceed with those plans was given by the City Council during its meeting Monday.
Those plans have been submitted to the Division of Coastal Management for review, which will take a minimum of 75 days, as part of the process to obtain the needed Coastal Area Management Act permit for the project.
The public had a chance to review the proposed project designs and alternative designs at a July 8 meeting at the Grace Martin Harwell Senior Center.
The design work was done by Bill Forman with the Bay Design Group. Forman is in the process of developing the job-bid packet for contractors to use in developing their bids on the project.
The dock-expansion project carries a $300,000 price tag. A grant is providing $200,000 of that amount. The city is providing the remaining $100,000, with $25,000 in cash and $75,000 in in-kind contributions, said Phil Mobley, the city’s director of parks and recreation, in a brief interview Wednesday.
The city’s waterfront currently has several docks, including 48 boat slips. The expansion project, if fully built, would add 68 boat slips, for a total of 116 boat slips.
The dock-expansion project is the only project the city is pursuing in its harbor district.
If the city provides about $85,000, it has the opportunity to combine that with $385,000 in grant funds to help build permanent public restroom facilities at the west end of Stewart Parkway and in the proposed Festival Park area just west of the N.C. Estuarium. The city has some of the grant funds in hand; the remaining grant funds are being sought.
The project on the west end of Stewart Parkway would be built by using a $200,000 CAMA grant, a $50,000 Boating Infrastructure Grant and $50,000 in city money, Mobley said. The project in the proposed Festival Park area would be built by using an $85,000 Parks and Recreation Trust Fund grant (which the city has been awarded), a $50,000 Boating Infrastructure Grant and $35,000 in city money.
The west-end facilities would part of a new dock master’s office called for in the revitalization and redevelopment strategy approved by the city last year.