- October 10, 2024
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Staging for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' beach renourishment project will begin on July 5, 2024, just months before construction of the new pier begins.
During the construction of these two major projects, the Florida Department of Transportation will also begin building the secant wall in early 2024 and the Margaritaville Hotel, on State Road 100 between South central and South Daytona Avenues, will be under construction until late 2024.
At a public meeting held at the Santa Maria del Mar Catholic Church in Flagler Beach on Oct. 18, Flagler Beach residents reviewed the designs for the new pier and the beach renourishment project. Representatives from the pier’s design firm Moffatt & Nichol, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, FDOT and the city answered questions from residents on logistics of juggling so many projects at once.
A short section of State Road A1A will be temporarily closed at the beginning of the construction, Flagler Beach City Manager Dale Martin said, but the restaurants and businesses will stay open during the work. The first few months are going to be the worst with so many projects happening at once, he said.
“I think the most critical time is going to be July through December [2024],” Martin said, “and then even July through October, because that's when [S.R. A1A] will be closed.”
I think the most critical time is going to be the July through December [2024]" — Dale Martin, Flagler Beach City Manager
A beach renourishment project will begin staging on July 5 and finish by March 2025, U.S. Army Corps Project Manager Jason Harrah said. Construction will run 24 hours a day.
“We will tell the contractor they cannot mobilize until July the fifth,” Harrah said. “There’ll be detours for northbound and southbound traffic [on S.R. A1A] — we don’t want the public near the area where there’s hundreds of dump trucks are coming in and out bringing in sand.”
The project is split into two: the federal beach renourishment that stretches three miles from Seventh Street South to 28th Street South, and the non-federal projects that bracket the federal stretch at either end, from Seventh Street North to Seventh Street South and from 28th Street South to Gamble Rogers State Park.
“To all the engineers coastal engineers, the more sand that is in the system, the better,” Harrah said. “We accepted the challenge.”
In total, 1.3 million cubic yards of sand is needed just for the federal project’s three-mile stretch. The northern non-federal section will have 150,000 cubic yards of sand while the southern non-federal section will have 120,000 cubic yards, according to Harrah’s presentation.
The Army Corps’ renourishment project will build the dunes up to 19 feet high — one foot taller than the pier’s current elevation — and build a sloped berm, the “towel space” portion of the beach, to 140 feet wide.
The 140 feet does not include the sand the Army Corps will add that extends into the surf, Harrah said.
The sand will be pumped from an approved site around eight miles offshore by a hopper dredge. The dredge works like a vacuum to suck sand up into the hull of the ship, Harrah said, and that sand is sent through a pipeline to the beach.
The Army Corps will close 1,500-foot sections of the beach at one time, beginning with the sections at 7th Street North and 7th Street South, on either side of the pier. Harrah said the plan is to finish up that area first so that the pier construction can begin.
From there, Harrah said the Corps will either continue working in sections moving to the south end of the project or jump to the southern end and then work north.
“It is a tight timeline,” Harrah said. “…The pier and the beach [projects] are pretty tied together.”
Since the construction will happen during turtle nesting season, people specially certified by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission will relocate the eggs and nests, Harrah said.
The county, city and Corps have worked out four staging areas for materials and machinery: the first at Veteran’s Park, the second at 6th Street South at an empty lot across from Tortugas Kitchen & Bar, the third in the Pebble Beach Homeowner’s Association, and the fourth across from the Flagler Beach water tower near South 28th Street.
Scott Fox, the owner of Tortugas' Florida Kitchen and Bar, said the Oct. 17 meeting was the first time that Flagler Beach residents and businesses have gotten to see a timeline and plan for the two projects combined.
The second staging area is directly across from his restaurant, and Fox said he did talk to Harrah and other officials after the meeting, who were able to answer his questions. But ultimately, Fox said, his biggest concern is how the construction will impact traffic to businesses.
"We're all really excited about it," Fox said. "[But] all the businesses in Flagler Beach are gong to feel the impact."
He said since 2016 the city has seen seven or eight disasters back to back, mainly multiple large hurricanes and the global pandemic. Fox reopened Tortugas' two months before Hurricane Matthew, he said, and Hurricane Irma hit the next year.
"It's been a challenge for the [local] businesses to keep things afloat and really succeed," he said.
As necessary as the upcoming work is, Fox said two years of construction is "going to be a challenge for everybody."
"Now they have a plan in place and they did a good job of communicating that to the community," Fox said. "It's going to be beautiful when it's all said and done."
Construction of the new pier will begin mid-October 2024, as soon as the beach renourishment work on either side of the pier is complete. The work is expected to last from then until February 2026 when the pier will reopen, Moffatt & Nichol Project Manager Gabriel Perdomo said.
The new pier will be a total of 800 feet in length, with the first 100 feet to be preserved and restored as the historic wood section.
The new section will be raised 10 feet in height — from 18 feet to 28 feet — with an ADA-compliant ramp connecting the two heights, Perdomo said. The increased height, he said, will protect against 500-year storm and wave events.
To further protect the pier’s integrity, the firm will also install break-away deck panels along the new 700 feet of pier. Break-away panels are much less expensive to replace and help protect the pier’s structure during a storm, he said.
“You won’t get that vertical upward force, which is what causes so much of the damage to these piers,” Perdomo said.
The skeleton of the pier will be concrete — the caps, stringers and piles — and the width of the pier will be extended to 25 feet, with a 20-by-35-foot “T head” at the end of the pier.
Perdomo said the fish cleaning stations will have potable water, and the pier itself will have shaded structures, benches, turtle-safe lighting and a firewater system.
Some of the additions to the pier — like the shading, benches, electricity and power supply points — were added after a Jan. 31 public meeting during which Flagler Beach officials and Moffatt & Nichol asked for feedback and suggestions from the public, Perdomo said.
The memorial planks, he said, will be removed by the contractor and given to the city, which will either return them to their owners or memorialize them in some way.
“We want to make sure that the contractor understands that it is their responsibility when they remove [the planks] to remove them carefully and to turn them over to the city,” Perdomo said.
Once construction is far enough along and it is safe to do so, Perdomo said, the construction team will build a designated pedestrian walkway under the bridge.
The Funky Pelican and other surrounding businesses will remain open during the construction. The beach parking on the south side of the A-frame will become a staging area for materials.
“We want to make sure that folks can access from one side of the pier to the other safely,” he said.
Joseph Fontanelli, FDOT District 5 project manager, told the Observer that construction of the secant wall should begin in early 2024, though he is hoping to start sooner, if possible.
“We are moving full speed ahead,” he said. “...I’m doing everything I can to move [this along].”
We are moving full speed ahead. ... I’m doing everything I can to move [this along].
— Joseph Fontanelli, FDOT District 5 project manager
A secant wall is a buried cement wall intended to prevent erosion. This wall will be buried in front of State Road A1A and stretch from a half mile north of Highbridge Road in Volusia County to South Central Avenue in Flagler County, near the water tower in Flagler Beach — at the south end of the beach renourishment project, Fontanelli said. A second secant wall will follow in Volusia County south of Sunrise Avenue to Marlin Drive in Ormond-By-the-Sea.
Fontanelli said that after all of the projects are done, FDOT will resurface A1A to fix any damage from the “thousands” of dump trucks that will be moving along A1A over the next 18 months.
“We’re going to come in and after all this heavy traffic comes through, all of this work is done, then we’re going to put the icing on the top,” he said.
Tortugas Florida Kitchen and Bar owner Scott Fox said that even with his concerns, he’s glad for the communication Flagler Beach has with its businesses and residents. Even though Oct. 17 was the first look at the plan, Fox said, he expects there to be many more conversations with all parties involved to figure out the best way to support local businesses during the work.
He’s confident the city and the planners will do all they can to mitigate the challenges to local businesses while getting the job done, and that the city will continue helping everyone through the process.
“This community has been through a lot,” Fox said. “Resilient is the best word to describe Flagler Beach.”
