By DONALD WITTKOWSKI
Sea Isle City’s public bathrooms overlooking the Promenade at 40th Street will be given an extensive renovation so that people can continue to do their, well, business there.
The heavily used restrooms are located just steps from the oceanfront Promenade and are also adjacent to the Excursion Park Band Shell, the popular venue for the city’s festivals, summer concerts, movie nights and family dance parties.
“They’re quite possibly the busiest public restrooms we have,” city spokeswoman Katherine Custer said. “They’re so widely used, and their location makes them so important.”
Now, the city is in the planning stages for what will be a major overhaul of both the men’s and women’s restrooms at the site.
The exterior of the aging building will be given new doors, windows, some siding and roof work. Inside, the ceiling, walls and floor will be renovated. There will also be new lighting fixtures, sinks and hand dryers, Custer said.
The city has not yet set a construction date for the project, although Custer indicated that work might be done over the winter or next spring.
The restroom project was included in a $7.7 million bond ordinance introduced by City Council on July 26 to fund a series of capital improvements around town, including road construction, Sea Isle’s first dog park and a stormwater pumping station to protect flood-prone neighborhoods.
Custer said it is not yet clear how much the bathroom renovations will cost because the project still must be designed and put out for public bid for a construction contract.
“It’s still in the very early planning stages,” she pointed out in an interview Wednesday.
The bathroom renovation is included in Sea Isle’s 2022 capital plan, a sweeping blueprint for construction projects and infrastructure improvements throughout the city.
The $100,000 proposed in the capital plan for the restroom project is simply an estimate of how much the renovations may cost, not a firm amount.
