Sea Isle Planning Millions of Dollars in Road and Utility Work

By DONALD WITTKOWSKI Motorists may have to be a little more patient while driving around Sea Isle City because they will likely encounter “Road Closed” or “Detour” signs somewhere along their trips. The city is beginning a series of road and utility projects that will turn some of the local streets into active construction zones this winter, spring and fall. Sea Isle traditionally does road reconstruction and utility projects during the quiet off-season months to avoid traffic disruptions during the busy summer tourism season. Altogether, millions of dollars in projects are planned for the winter, spring and fall, meaning that a lot of streets will be torn up for new water mains, sewer systems and paving. After the streets are ripped up for water main or sewer system installation, they will be restored with new paving. As it has done with success in the past, the city will sequence the road projects in a way that should minimize delays or disruptions to traffic, City Business Administrator George Savastano explained. “We try to lay them out in a logical fashion,” Savastano said while announcing the road construction program during Tuesday’s City Council meeting. In an interview after the meeting, Savastano estimated that the total cost of all of the projects would be in the neighborhood of $4 million to $5 million. Sea Isle will use a combination of city, county and state funding to pay for construction. Savastano could only estimate the cost at this point because most of the projects have not yet gone out to bid. A "Road Closed" sign greets motorists at the intersection of 58th Street and Central Avenue. While most of the projects are planned for later this year, construction is already underway for sewer replacement on Sounds Avenue from 56th Street to Dealy Field and on 59th Street from Central Avenue to Sounds. The same roads are scheduled to be reconstructed in the fall following the sewer work. Road reconstruction projects scheduled to begin this week include:

• 40th Street between Central Avenue and Kneass Street
• Kneass Street between JFK Boulevard and 38th Street
• Pleasure Avenue between JFK Boulevard and 38th Street
• 89th Street from Pleasure Avenue to the beach end

Road or utility construction projects scheduled to begin in the spring include:

• Central Avenue from 56th Street to 69th Street
• 40th Street between Landis Avenue and Central Avenue
• Central Avenue from 40th Street to West Jersey Avenue

Road projects slated for the fall include:

• Central Avenue from JFK Boulevard to 36th Street
• 40th Street from Landis to Central Avenue
• 46th Place from Park Road to the end

Road construction planned in the fall of 2023 or spring of 2024:

• Cini Avenue from JFK Boulevard to 36th Street

40th Street between Central Avenue and Kneass Street is one of the road reconstruction projects scheduled to start this week.