On March 31, the Town of Carolina Beach prepped for this year’s tourist season with a grand opening ceremony for its newly renovated boardwalk. The new boardwalk is just one of three major projects to improve the town’s boardwalk district.

Infrastructure improvements in the boardwalk district, which spans from Harper Avenue north to Cape Fear Boulevard and from Lake Park Boulevard west to the ocean, are currently underway. The improvements will enhance the streetscape on Cape Fear Boulevard and Canal Drive and improve water and sewer facilities, officials said.

The town also added 5-foot sidewalks on each side of Canal Drive and widened the sidewalks on Cape Fear Boulevard from Lake Park Drive to Canal Drive. This improvement, according to town manager Michael Cramer, will help make pedestrian travel safer. These areas in particular see a high volume of walking traffic during the summer months due to boardwalk activities and the seasonal carnival, he said.

As construction of a new Hampton Inn hotel at the corner of Canal Drive and Harper Avenue began, the need for improvements to water, sewer and electrical facilities at the district’s concrete boardwalk became apparent to town officials.

The concrete boardwalk walkway, which is located in the heart of the boardwalk district, replaced the town’s original wooden boardwalk in the 1940s, and improvements to utilities have not been made since then.

To remedy the problem, the concrete boardwalk’s northern section was replaced, sidewalks were added and the area’s utility lines were put underground. The town plans to replace more sections of the concrete boardwalk each year and hopes to have the entire walkway replaced and all utilities underground in that area within the next two years, Cramer said.

“This will give us a cleaner, fresh look,” he said. “It will beautify the area and make it a more attractive tourist destination.”

The boardwalk district also saw the addition of a 750-foot-long wooden boardwalk featuring 16-foot wide walkways, pavilions, shade trellises and five ADA-accessible beach access points. The new access points allow wheelchairs to easily navigate from the concrete boardwalk to the beach and make Carolina Beach one of the state’s most ADA-accessible beaches, officials said.

The new boardwalk project has been broken up in to two phases with phase one completed and phase two still under consideration by the town. If approved, the second phase of the project would expand the boardwalk down to Pelican Lane in front of the new Hampton Inn hotel.

Funding for the boardwalk renovations came from state, water resources and county grants and a contribution from the town that amounted to about $250,000. The town is also raising money for improvements from the public by selling sponsorships for benches and swings located along the wooden boardwalk.