Waterfront Park ‘isn’t sinking into Beaufort River.’ But it will take millions to fix it

Beaufort City Manager Scott Marshall would not be surprised if the cost of repairing the deteriorating waterfront structures at the city’s Waterfront Park reaches $100 million.

That’s more than the city’s annual budget of $55 million, which includes spending on capital projects.

Marshall acknowledges his estimate is a “wild guess” that is not based on an official estimate from an engineer or consultant. However, a triple-digit price tag in the millions, Marshall adds, “wouldn’t surprise me.”

“It’s a huge unplanned expense,” Marshall says.

Next week, the city will begin looking for a consultant to guide it through the process of fixing the park that’s often referred to as a “crown jewel.”

The park’s infrastructure problems were found by engineers during an inspection in April and publicly explained to city officials in June.

Marshall discussed the waterfront and the challenge the city faces in fixing it and how it plans to proceed from here in an interview Thursday, on the eve of the city’s famed Water Festival , whose main venue is Waterfront Park. Some 50,000 people are expected to attend over 10 days.

“The park is not sinking into the Beaufort River,” Marshall said.

But the park, which opened in 1979, needs a “major fix,” he says. The April inspection found that a sizable number of concrete pilings that support waterfront and seawall structures below the water line were deteriorating. Extensive shoaling also has been noted. Shoaling is silt build-up.

The city already has told American Cruise Lines it can no longer tie up cruise ships at the waterfront because of the problems.

Cruise ships typically bring about 2,730 visitors to the city a year . “It’s a small boon to our economy downtown,” Marshall said.

Over the years, funds were not set aside for long-term repairs to the park, Marshall said. “I wish that had been the case,” said Marshall, who joined the city in January 2023.

Marshall has said previously the city will be looking to state and federal sources of funding for the repairs. “We’re looking at all options,” he said Thursday.

The city already has spent just over $1 million on stabilizing Waterfront pilings between 2018 and 202 2. But the 2024 inspection found a marked acceleration of the piling deterioration and shoaling problems since the last inspection in 2019. The latest report recommended that the city take immediate action including suspending cruise ship moorings, increasing the frequency of inspections, fixing the bad pilings and initiating studies and securing funding for replacement of the structure.

Age and wear-and-tear are taking their toll on the waterfront structures, which have a life span of 50 to 70 years, Marshall said. The problem now is that, with the shoaling, it’s difficult to even inspect the pilings.

On Friday, a representative with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was scheduled to be in Beaufort to take a look at the situation and meet with city officials. Marshall hopes that somebody within that federal agency has seen a similar problem.