Saturday, November 9, 2024

Wilmington continues to restore brick streets, city manager asks to leave Nixon Street out

Despite being in disrepair and the discovery of bricks under asphalt on Nixon Street in Wilmington, the city is ready to leave the street off its Brick and Stone Street Map (Port City Daily/Courtesy Wilmington)
Despite being in disrepair and the discovery of bricks under asphalt on Nixon Street in Wilmington, the city is ready to leave the street off its Brick and Stone Street Map (Port City Daily/Courtesy Wilmington)

WILMINGTON — Restoring brick streets in Wilmington has been an ongoing effort by the city and other historic preservation advocates, but it seems that only certain areas of brick streets will be restored.

According to a resolution in the City Council’s agenda for its upcoming meeting that would update the official Brick and Stone Streets Policy Map, a newly discovered brick street will be left off the map.

Nixon Street between North 7th Street and McRae Street is being excluded from the brick streets map.

So what is the official reason for leaving Nixon Street off the map? According to City Manager Sterling Cheatham — cost.

“City staff has evaluated this street segment and provided additional information to support the recommendation to not add this segment to the map. Staff is recommending against adding this segment because the cost estimates are significantly higher for this block. Preliminary cost estimates using recent bid prices total approximately $435,000 for these 2 blocks of Nixon St or $217,500 per block. Staff have previously estimated costs of stripping asphalt and filling in areas of missing brick to be $80,000 per block dependent on conditions found after asphalt removal,” Cheatham said.

The City of Wilmington recently discovered brick streets under the pavement on Nixon Street, but - according to the city - restoring the street to its original brick style would be expensive. (Port City Daily photo / City of Wilmington)
The City of Wilmington recently discovered brick streets under the pavement on Nixon Street, but – according to the city – restoring the street to its original brick style would be expensive. (Port City Daily photo / City of Wilmington)

“There are two reasons for the higher cost along Nixon Street: 1) the need to rebuild the entire brick surface at a higher elevation in order to match the existing curb grade and 2) the existing brick cannot be effectively harvested and reused because they are not pavers and therefore, all brick would need to be replaced,” he concluded.


 

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