Army Corps Of Engineers Awards $7.3 Million Contract To Restore Beaches Of Coney Island

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers awarded a $7.3 million contract to the Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Company for its plan to replenish the shores of Brighton Beach and Coney Island following Superstorm Sandy. According to a press release, the company will be charged with replacing 600,000 cubic yards of displaced sand, preparing the beaches for future storms and reducing the risk of flooding in the communities around them..

The Army Corps billed the construction work in a press release as restoring Coney Island, but the agency confirmed to Sheepshead Bites that this project includes Brighton Beach. It does not include the private, gated community of Seagate, which is seeking its own lump of federal dollars for repairs and storm mitigation. The scope of the project is from Corbin Place on the eastern end to the beach’s western end at West 37th Street.

New York District Commander Colonel Paul E. Owen elaborated on the project in the release.

“This engineered beach helped reduce impacts from the Atlantic Ocean during Hurricane Sandy and we look forward to restoring it back to its design profile so it can continue to mitigate the impacts of future storms,” Owen said.

Construction on the beach is likely to begin in August and the work is expected to be completed in the fall. In the release, the Army Corps estimated the impact that the work will have on recreational activities:

While restoration work is going on, there will likely be rolling closures of roughly 1000 foot wide sections of the beach where construction work is active, but the Corps of Engineers will make efforts to limit the impacts of the ongoing work on recreation without compromising public safety. Closures will be closely coordinated with the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation.

“While the beach at Coney Island still looks full and robust, this repair work is important to ensuring the engineered beach continues to provide coastal storm risk reduction to the communities behind it,” Owen said. “This sort of work is ultimately a construction project and as such we must be mindful of safety in the areas where work is ongoing. We will work with our partners in New York City Parks to coordinate the beach closures and limit the impacts to recreation, but we need to balance that with the importance of providing increased coastal storm risk reduction to the community to help reduce the risk from future storms.”

Correction (4:00 p.m.): The original version of this article misstated the scope of the project, saying that the western limit of the work would be at West 23rd Street. It is actually West 37th Street, and the article has been amended. We regret any confusion this may have caused.