Notice the Boundary Street boardwalk blocking your marsh views? You’re not alone

A new Boundary Street boardwalk built to show off the surrounding marsh views had an unintended consequence and will require $144,000 to correct.

A safety railing erected along the southside of Boundary near Beaufort Town Center blocks the sweeping views of Battery Creek from passing traffic. Changing the design is costly but necessary, city and county officials say.

Mayor Billy Keyserling said in a recent newsletter he was aghast at the fence and called its construction a mistake. The materials “create a barrier to the intended view shed we planned,” he wrote in January.

A plan calls for steel cables to replace the wood slats on the boardwalk where the rail was already constructed. Steel cabling will be used on the stretch of boardwalk without a rail.

The county’s public facilities committee considered the fix Monday. Retrofitting the existing boardwalk and installing the cabling on the two future boardwalk sections is expected to cost about $144,000, deputy county administrator Josh Gruber said.

“The downside to looking at an option like this is that the steel cabling and its installation is quite expensive,” Gruber said Monday, later adding that the materials should last twice as long.

The work “is not a place to pinch pennies and fortunately there are contingency funds set aside for issues like this,” Keyserling wrote in response to a recent letter to The Beaufort Gazette and The Island Packet.

The $33-million Boundary Street project is expected to be completed in early 2018. Work is currently concentrated on a utility bank on the north side of the street where many of the city’s businesses operate.

Much of First Street running parallel to Boundary recently reopened. The road will eventually connect to a new intersection at Boundary Street and Robert Smalls Parkway.

This story was originally published March 7, 2017 at 2:13 PM with the headline "Notice the Boundary Street boardwalk blocking your marsh views? You’re not alone."