SANDWICH- After this year’s harsh winter, the Sandwich Boardwalk has taken a severe structural beating.
This has lead to town officials approving $76,344 in temporary repair funds before the start of the heavy summer beach season.
On May 4th, selectmen voted 4-0 to award the repair contract to the Boston based firm ‘Murphy Specialty’ who provided the lower of the two bids offered to the town.
“We’ve had a chance to contact their references and check them out, and they seem to be fully committed to getting the repairs done in the timeframe that we need, and they seem to be fully equipped and capable,” said Assistant Town Engineer Sam Jensen.
The Town Neck Beach parking lot has been closed to residents and visitors since the severe March nor’easter ripped up planks, destroyed stairs leading to and from the walk, and washed away millions of dollars of sand that helped to keep the structure sound.
Jensen said that the project will “be a repair of all the immediate work that needs to be done in order to re-open the Boardwalk. There’s the damaged sections in the middle where there is actually gaps in the Boardwalk now, those would be closed. The worst of the decayed portions would be replaced, and we would be able to re-open it to the public.”
If the Sandwich Finance Committee agrees, the funds to complete this project would come from spare town funding.
No word yet on when a full repair job will be completed on the landmark.
By JOHN BONDAREK, CapeCod.com NewsCenter