WILMINGTON — Flowers, a cupcake, a shark, and the state map all hang on buoys that decorate a downtown chainlink fence in Waterfront Park. It’s the city’s recent move to beautify an area awaiting construction, with the hopes of it being covered by a federal grant.
More than 250 painted buoys have transformed a section of the riverwalk into a community art installation. Installed on Thursday, June 11, the buoys were painted by residents and visitors during a community painting event on April 11 at MLK Community Center, attended by 55 people.
Artists from DREAMS Center for Arts Education, children in the MLK and Davis community centers’ after-school programs and city employees also contributed.
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DREAMS is a non-profit organization that provides various free art programs for youth and their families in the greater Wilmington area. The city reached out to the nonprofit to see if they would participate in the buoy painting as Wilmington’s cultural program specialist Andrea Talley often collaborates with the organization. DREAMS students painted 50 buoys.
Director of Design and Construction Justin Carter called the project a “huge success.”
“Part of putting that fence up, though, for safety, we wanted to also engage the community and give people an opportunity to show their love for Wilmington and have a place that we can actually hang some really artistic stuff that the community’s put together,” Carter said.
The temporary fence that houses the buoys was erected in February to section off a 500 foot section of the riverfront bulkhead, at the site of the former USS Cutter Diligence. The 1.6-acre area was purchased by the City of Wilmington in 2023 for $1.2 million from the Coast Guard in order to establish a public park and is blocked off by the fence as the metal bulkhead has begun to deteriorate with time.
The structure, which prevents erosion by creating a barrier between the land and water, is 59 years old and has been worn down by rust, waves, and debris. The city is replacing the 500 foot segment of the steel structure with a new concrete one.
“Concrete also lasts a lot longer with the environment that we have here with the water,” Carter said. “Concrete allows us to probably maintain it a little bit longer and fix it a lot easier than what a metal bulkhead would.”
Construction is estimated to cost $17.5-million and is currently planned to be funded by a federal grant and city money. The city is in the process of obtaining a $14-million grant from the U.S. Economic Development Administration that will be used to repair the aging bulkhead infrastructure.
The official grant request is expected to be sent to the federal government within the next two weeks. 250 letters of public support will be submitted as a part of that.
The money would be used to tear down the old bulkhead, remove the material, and put a platform and railings up, similar to the one along Market Street.
The city will provide a local match of $3.5 million which comes from money left over from previous projects such as the construction happening in front of Pier 33. The local funding is not at additional expense to tax payers.
If the grant is not accepted the FY29, FY30 timeframe would be used to find project funding.
The city was considering putting a park there at one point.
“When this property was purchased from the Coast Guard, there was a plan to do a park here,” Carter said. “I would say that we’re not committed to any of that at the moment.”
The buoys will remain up until construction begins, which could take one to two years.
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