Construction Resumes on Main Gateway into Sea Isle City

By Donald Wittkowski After stopping for the busy summer tourism season, construction is resuming on a $12.7 million project that will elevate the main entryway into Sea Isle City to protect it from the low-lying barrier island’s notorious flooding. For months, the newly elevated section of Sea Isle Boulevard has been tucked behind concrete construction barriers, awaiting the contractor to finish the final parts of the project before motorists begin using it. Cape May County is raising the road by 4.5 feet to create a higher and drier evacuation route for flood-prone Sea Isle. Motorists will switch over from existing, low-lying stretch of Sea Isle Boulevard to the elevated section in mid-October, county engineer Dale Foster said. “We should be able to get through just about any type of flooding event,” Foster said of the benefits of the elevated road. Before the switch-over occurs, construction crews must finish the guardrail, grading and streetlights on the new stretch of road. Gullies in the roadway’s dirt embankment, created by rain storms and erosion in the past few months, must be filled in as part of the final stages of work. Traffic currently uses the two low-lying lanes on the south side of the roadway. Sea Isle Boulevard is being reconstructed between the northbound entrance to the Garden State Parkway and the John F. Kennedy Boulevard bridge entering town, a stretch of 1.7 miles. The elevated section will tie in with the parkway entrance ramp. The new road will not only be higher, but will be wider than the cramped lanes that currently handle traffic in and out of Sea Isle. During peak travel times in the busy summer tourist season, it is not uncommon for traffic to get backed up heading into town. Although the project will ultimately create a better roadway and evacuation route, the lengthy construction work has been a source of frustration for Sea Isle. Mayor Leonard Desiderio has ridiculed it as the “boulevard of broken dreams.” The multifaceted project began in 2014 and is being done in phases. Originally, it was thought that traffic would shift over to the elevated section in time for the 2017 summer tourism season, but construction delays thwarted those plans. However, Foster said the roadway work still remains on schedule for a summer 2019 completion. The elevated roadway will tie in with the northbound entrance ramp to the Garden State Parkway. During the next major phase, the low-lying south side of the existing roadway will also be elevated by 4.5 feet. Huge mounds of dirt will be added to the south side and then will sit there for two years. The process, known as “surcharging,” allows the dirt to become compact enough for the next part of the elevated boulevard to be built on top of it. Environmental permits for the boulevard project prohibit construction between March 15 and Aug. 15 during the nesting season for ospreys, which are classified by the state as a threatened species of bird. Reconstruction work will also include new bulkheading at Sunk’s Creek to help protect the roadway from erosion. The bulkhead will also create public access to fishing areas along the creek. Diamondback terrapins will also benefit from the road project. New fencing will be installed along the guardrail to prevent turtles from venturing onto the roadway and being crushed by cars, as they often are now. The diamondbacks emerge from their marshlands habitat in the summer to lay their eggs in sandy soil on the other side of the road. The final phase of the boulevard project involves wetlands mitigation. As part of the project’s environmental permits, new wetlands must be created to replace those that were filled in during road construction. All told, the bulkhead work and wetlands mitigation should wrap up by June 2020, finally bringing the entire project to an end, Foster said. Heavy construction equipment stands ready for the next phase of the project.