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Clearwater Beach Walk renovations underway
Kailey Tracey reports
CLEARWATER, Fla. - Construction on Beach Walk in Clearwater Beach has begun.
The pedestrian walkway runs more than a mile from South Gulfview Boulevard to Mandalay Avenue. Crews started renovations on the south end in front of Frenchy’s South Beach Cafe Monday. While crews clean and give Beach Walk touch-ups regularly, this is the first major renovation for the walkway since it opened in 2008, city staff said.
"You figure it’s 14 years old and what do you do to your house," said Art Kader, the city's Deputy Director of Parks and Recreation. "If you paint your house, it’s going to last you for another 10 years and that’s really what we’re trying to do, to preserve and protect and make it beautiful again. I mean, after all, Clearwater is a bright and beautiful bay to beach."
Kader said crews are pressure washing the concrete, repairing the cracks, replacing some of the seat walls, repainting and renovating the shower towers, redoing the canopies, replacing signage, adding a sealer layer to the concrete, and more.
"The sealer will basically do three things. One, it’ll make everything look prettier. It will bring back the color. You see the faded walkways here, but it will also protect, mainly protects, the concrete structures that we have and thirdly, it makes it really easy for us to maintain. It makes it a lot easier to get those bubble gum up and also the ice cream stains, those types of things," Kader said.
Kader said Beach Walk is an economic driver for the city, with businesses building along it. The project is broken down into 18 sections, and Kader said they’ll notify businesses affected as they go. Businesses can remain open, though, and people can still access the beach, he said.
"It definitely needed it," SAID Paige Medina-Duff, a supervisor at CK’s Eat and Drink, along Beach Walk. "If you’ve walked it, it’s scuzzy. It’s dirty."
Medina-Duff said while she thinks the renovations are necessary, she’s also concerned business will be impacted when renovations start in front of CK’s.
"Our traffic is mainly out front. It’s the only way we get anybody. So if that gets closed off, no one’s coming around the back side because we do have a back entrance, but no one is going to come through there, so it will pretty much hurt us tremendously," she said.
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The project will cost about $1,333,147, Kader said. Construction will wrap up by the end of August, and they’ll pause the project during busy seasons, like spring break.
You can keep up with the progress on Clearwater’s website.