THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, August 13, 1996 TAG: 9608130279
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY BILL REED, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: 61 lines
Construction bids for the new Hurricane Protection Project have come in as much as $1.7 million under budget for the first phase - an eight-block seawall-boardwalk at the south end of the Oceanfront.
Construction is to start in early October, ``as soon as the tents come down'' for the Neptune Festival, said James Creighton, project manager for the Army Corps of Engineers, which is overseeing the project.
The apparent low bidder on the first phase was S.B. Ballard Inc., a Norfolk contractor whose $6.2 million bid was $500,000 lower than its nearest competitor and $6.2 million under the highest bidder.
Six contractors bid on the project - two from Norfolk, one from Portsmouth, one from Virginia Beach, one from Chesapeake and one from Baltimore.
Creighton said a Corps of Engineers committee is reviewing the low bid and may award the contract by Thursday or Friday if all elements of Ballard's offer meet the specifications.
Completion of the first segment would take about a year, and construction on the second phase - most likely from 35th to 40th streets - would begin in the fall of 1997.
The entire package is designed to ward off the worst seaborne storm Mother Nature can throw at the beach over a 140-year period.
In June, the city agreed to pay its share - $36 million - of the $102 million hurricane protection project and offered to ante up $8 million in front money to cover both its portion and the federal government's share of the first phase.
Basically, City Council is obligating the city to pay $36 million over four years for the project, which will extend from Rudee Inlet to 89th Street, and to maintain it for 50 years.
Council members agreed to the advance despite concerns that Congress will be slow in appropriating its share of the cost.
Creighton said $8 million in federal funding on the second phase is pending before a House and Senate conference committee, where it is likely to emerge intact. The hangup, Creighton explained, is with the Clinton administration, which opposes the project and others like it.
Local officials won't know the fate of the plan until after the November election.
Nevertheless, the city and the Corps of Engineers are pressing ahead with the first two phases. The second entails the construction of two pumping stations, at 16th and 42nd streets, on the Oceanfront. They are designed to aid stormwater drainage along resort and North End streets.
The hurricane protection plan contains five major elements:
Reconstruction of the seawall from Rudee Inlet to 58th Street.
A newer and wider Boardwalk from Rudee Inlet to 40th Street.
Augmenting the dunes from 58th to 89th streets.
Widening the beach from Rudee Inlet to 89th Street.
Building two new pumping stations and upgrading a third station near 77th Street. ILLUSTRATION: Drawing
The first phase of the Hurricane Protection Project will stretch
along eight blocks of Oceanfront.
KEYWORDS: EROSION HURRICANE by CNB