Belmar became the first municipality among Jersey Shore towns to break ground on its boardwalk replacement project on Jan. 9. Belmar Mayor Matt Doherty said the project will be complete in time for Memorial Day. JEFF GRANIT staff Whether one lives by the Shore or makes summertime pilgrimages there from farther-flung places in the state, the destruction of boardwalks by superstorm Sandy dealt a crushing blow.
The good news, however, is that many beachside towns have begun the arduous task of rebuilding, with some vowing to have their boardwalks intact by Memorial Day.
“Belmar is leading the way to recovery,” Gov. Chris Christie said during a Jan. 9 speech preceding the groundbreaking on the boardwalk reconstruction there.
He went on to say that he would be there again on Memorial Day, when the boardwalk is slated for reopening.
The town awarded the $6.6 million contract to rebuild its 1.3-mile boardwalk to Piscataway-based Epic Construction, which drove in the first of the pilings to mark the beginning of the work.
“The way this new boardwalk is being built is going to be far superior than the previous ones,” said Belmar Mayor Matt Doherty. “It will be built to a standard that would have withstood Sandy.”
Borough engineers incorporated higher standards in designing the new boardwalk, which Doherty said may be adopted by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection.
Some previous pilings supporting the boardwalk were 6 feet long, compared to the current 25-foot lengths, according to Doherty. In addition, the old boardwalk lacked hurricane straps, which will now be placed wherever two boards meet, he said.
Drawing the ire of environmental groups, the town’s plans originally included using ipe, a Brazilian hardwood harvested from rainforests. However, Doherty and other officials opted instead to use Trex, a wood-alternative composite material.
A worker stands atop a piece of construction equipment during Gov. Chris Christie’s Jan. 9 press conference for the groundbreaking ceremony marking the start of work on Belmar’s new boardwalk. JEFF GRANIT staff Doherty said that although ipe was the preferred product, an environmental group from New York threatened litigation and injunctions that could have held up the work if the town used the material.
“We couldn’t allow an out-of-state special interest group to hold our town and our residents hostage,” he said, adding that he thinks Belmar would have prevailed in court. “It’s not an environmental reason that we’re not using [ipe], it was because we didn’t want to get tied up in the courts.”
Neighboring Avon reportedly has plans to use ipe in its boardwalk reconstruction. Officials from the town were not available to comment for this story.
Gov. Chris Christie at Belmar Belmar passed an ordinance Dec. 3 to allow for up to $20 million in bonding to pay for storm remediation, with $3 million going toward cleanup and the remaining $17 million earmarked for the boardwalk, if necessary. Fortunately for Belmar taxpayers, the $6.6 million bid came in.
“That’s why we’re not in a position where we have to raise beach badge [prices] this coming season,” Doherty said, adding that badge sales are already up 40 percent over last summer.
An expected 75 percent of towns’ stormrelated costs will be covered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and Belmar’s Buy a Board fundraising program has helped with expenses.
“Our Buy a Board program is off-thecharts successful,” Doherty said, adding that contributors have not only come from New Jersey and New York, but also from as far as California. “You see, there’s a lot of enthusiasm for Belmar, and people are being very generous and want us to succeed.” P oint Pleasant Beach also has plans to have its boardwalk back up and running by the start of summer. The town is unique in that the majority of its beaches are owned by private entities, resulting in a joint effort to rebuild the boardwalks, roughly 75 to 85 percent of which sustained damages.
“The best way to encourage people to fix up their [damaged] homes is to work on the infrastructure, and the boardwalk is an integral part of our family resort reputation,” said Point Pleasant Beach Mayor Vincent Barrella.
Jenkinson’s is another integral part of that reputation. Owners of a large stretch of the town’s beach and boardwalk, along with a nightclub, aquarium, amusements and several other features of the beachside resort, the company struck a deal with the town to cover up to $1 million of the estimated $3 million to $4 million in costs for the boardwalk’s reconstruction.
“They didn’t have to do this, and I appreciate them doing this,” Barrella said.
As part of that deal, Jenkinson’s dropped a lawsuit against the town that dealt with parking restrictions. In addition, municipal officials agreed to repeal a rule calling for bars to close at midnight. Toby Wolf, a spokeswoman for Jenkinson’s, explained that the town expects to receive 75 percent of the reconstruction costs from FEMA, and will bond for the remainder. Jenkinson’s has agreed to pay back up to $1 million of that bond, with interest.
She said Jenkinson’s plans to reopen its arcades, aquarium and sweet shop sometime in February, with the remainder of work to be completed by Memorial Day.
“Obviously, it’s not easy,” she said, while pointing out that Jenkinson’s was fortunate to have suffered fairly minimal damages to its buildings. “Yes, this happened here; yes, this is horrible, but we have to buck up, get it done and look to the future.”
According to the mayor, the boardwalk will be rebuilt with Trex, and there will be no changes to its height.
He pointed out that because the borough’s beaches are privately owned — aside from a very small stretch that is leased to an outside company — the town doesn’t benefit from a beach utility like other towns. In addition, Barrella said this may mean that the town will have to shoulder the tab for moving the sand from the streets — where it was pushed by the storm — back onto the beaches. L ong Branch also faces boardwalk reconstruction. “As far as when we are nailing the first nail, I’d say a minimum of 18 months,” said Charles Shirley, Long Branch police officer and assistant to the director of the Office of Emergency Management, during a Jan. 8 meeting.
“If we were to build it back to that same height, I don’t care what you attach it with, if it gets pounded, it is going to get ripped up again,” he said.
In a Jan. 9 interview, Finance Director Ron Mehlhorn Sr. said if the city were to rebuild the boardwalk in the same fashion as the previous one, it would cost about $7.5 million.
He said FEMA would reimburse the city for the cost of replacing the original boardwalk, plus an additional 50 percent to build a safer and more secure boardwalk.
“It’s almost like insurance, and then they say if you make these improvements to make it stand up better against future storms, they will pay up to 50 percent of that base,” Mehlhorn said. “Theoretically, they’d reimburse us the $7.5 million and then 50 percent of that on top if they approve the plans for improving it.”
He explained that city officials have no intention of rebuilding the boardwalk the same way, but said they still must figure out how much it would cost to do so in order to submit that amount to FEMA.
Business Administrator Howard Woolley Jr. said the city has engineers working on different designs, and the council will ultimately decide on the future of the boardwalk.
“The mayor has directed me to get some professionals to take a look at it, to come up with some ideas for you guys to talk about and select from,” he said. “There is not going to be one answer; there probably is going to be several, with several different price tags attached … We are probably going to have to put some city dollars up.”
Shirley said some improvements FEMA may fund include raising the pilings, building a concrete barricade in front of the boardwalk, and bluff creation.
While the majority of the boardwalk in Long Branch has been ripped up and will be replaced, the area in front of Pier Village survived the storm. Shirley said that section may serve as an example of how to build the rest of the boardwalk.
“One of the things that we saw that worked was the hydraulic pressure had to be relieved,” Shirley said. “So, if the boards are above the roadway, the water would flush up and through it, and would be able to come back and relieve it. Otherwise, where it connected it would just hit and lift up the boardwalk, and that’s what happened here.”
Mehlhorn said the city also plans to widen the new boardwalk, but this portion of the project would likely have to be funded entirely by the city. I n Ocean Grove, restoration work is ongoing and the beachfront is slated to be open by Memorial Day weekend, according to the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association (OGCMA).
Visitors can expect to find sections of the boardwalk at Ocean Grove’s southern end, closest to Bradley Beach, fully repaired and operational this summer. This includes the bathhouse complex. From the beachfront office/ bathhouse to the pavilion, damaged boardwalk sections will be removed and temporary beach access points created.
The boardwalk from the pavilion to Seaview Avenue will be fully functional. This area sustained minimal damage, as it was protected by dunes that were reinforced by a subterranean rubble wall.
At the north end, from Seaview to Asbury Park, the potential for a temporary walkway is being evaluated. A lthough Asbury Park, another Shore hotspot, didn’t suffer a complete loss of its boardwalk, the city is expecting to spend about $4.7 million on rebuilding the southern portion of the boardwalk, according to Mayor Ed Johnson.
“We took our beating, but it’s nowhere near what other towns have taken,” he said. “Our plan is to do a complete study of the substructure … and build it stronger than it was before.”
That study has already begun, and Johnson said the town has bonded for a total of $10 million in Sandy-related expenses. He said officials hope to recoup almost all of that amount from the federal government.
Although Johnson said the sound design of the existing boardwalk helped to protect most of it, city officials intend to employ stronger wood in reconstructing the damaged portions.
In addition, he said, they will copy a special process used to shore up the northern section of the boardwalk and strengthen it for last summer’s Bamboozle music festival.
Several businesses on the southern end of the boardwalk have yet to reopen since sustaining damages, but Johnson said everything along the beach will reopen by summer.
So far, Asbury Park has been able to keep its beach badge prices the same as last season, and Johnson said he hopes the town can maintain that.
Beyond the boardwalk damages, other beach woes there included the loss of a reserve generator at the city’s sewage treatment plant near the beach’s north end. Also, like other towns, Asbury Park must set about removing debris that was carried into the ocean by the storm.
Johnson praised Gov. Chris Christie’s recent State of the State speech, lauding his efforts for New Jersey.
“But now the devil is in the details,” Johnson said. “We have gotten aid and equipment and relief efforts to foreign countries faster than we’ve gotten for Sandy. And that’s just a pure shame. You see the pictures and you hear about the devastation … but the sound of devastation has been replaced with the sound of rebuilding and a sound of generosity. If there is a silver lining to this, it’s that we’ve found compassion.” Staff writer Amy Rosen contributed to this story.