Posted on March 3, 2025
HILTON HEAD ISLAND, S.C. (WSAV) — The Hilton Head Island Beach renourishment program is one step closer to starting.
The Town received permits from the Army Corps of Engineers and the State Department of Environmental Services, meaning the project will go out for bid in late March.
The project was originally expected to start as early as June. Town official now say that start date has been pushed back to August or September.
“We plan to deliver that out of queue for solicitation in March, and then with the contractor, work on a more detailed project schedule, construction schedule one that will be an operations for the beach project,” said Shawn Colin, Hilton Head Island Assistant Town Manager.
“Our project is split into three phases,” Colin added. “The earliest a phase one could start that window is June of this year through October of this year. And then the second window doesn’t start until September of this year and end in May of next year. until we get a contractor on board to understand how they want to mobilize and then do the work, it’s more likely that they would start later in that first window so they can move from phase one to phase two without significant gaps in activity. We believe that’s likely to start mid to late summer.”
The project is expected to cost between $42-$50 million, to move 2.2 million cubic yards of sand from the ocean to restore to shoreline. The cost is so prohibitive because only a few companies, 4 or 5, have the equipment and experience to do the work.
“The town has a beach preservation fee, a dedicated funding source or source that helps fund beach renourishment, but also monitoring and other beach support activities,” said Colin. “Town Council will have to decide if they want to pay cash for it, if they want to issue debt for if they want to do a hybrid. They provided some input at their workshop and we’ll work with the town manager through the budget process to execute was most advantageous from their standpoint and be able to execute the project.”
While tourism and local businesses along the beach will be affected during to several month-long project, Town officials say even for work this large in scope the impact should be small.
“As the operation moves along the beach, it’s only about a thousand feet that’s impacted and it moves, you know, within a few days or a week, they’re on to the next section. So even that even though it’s a large project with equipment, you know, the impact to any one area is just a few days.”
