ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. -- Getting back to full working order. The St. Augustine Municipal Marina is getting some much-needed repairs and brand new docks. It sustained major damage during hurricane Irma.
Dan and Jaye Lundsford live on a sailboat at the St. Augustine Municipal Marina, right next to the Bridge of Lions.
"Love it. Love it. This is going to be great," Dan said.
They're happy to see the removal of the old damaged docks and the rebuilding of new ones. Hurricane Irma mangled the marina's docks. About half of the slips were damaged. They had already been compromised by Hurricane Matthew.
"The staff has done so much with so little this year. Just keeping things running as best they could," Jaye said.
Sam Adukiewicz is the Harbormaster at the St. Augustine Municipal Marina. "As you can see, it's all new construction. We have new pilings, new dock structure, new electric, new plumbing, New water. It will be completely new."
He said the city will foot the $3.5 million, and "once the FEMA money comes through, it can be applied to those loans and other arrangements."
Regaining boat slips will help the marina make money instead of lose revenue. "Since Irma, 30 - 40 percent less," Adukiewicz said.
While there is activity on the waterside of the marina, over on the land, there is another project taking place.
"It started out as the seawall connectivity project," Adukiewicz said.
The seawall will be extended from the Bridge of Lions, south to the larger, newer seawall.
Part of the project includes building a secondary seawall.
"That secondary seawall will provide additional protection for high water in the event of a hurricane or tropical storm," Adukiewicz said.
"The top of the wall will be 8 feet above mean high tide, so it will be quite a bit higher than it is now."
"This will help," Jaye said. "Every time it rains here, you can't walk across that lawn. So it will be great to have that improvement."
Improvements... that are designed to protect the marina from floods, and once again raise revenue at the docks.
Adukiewicz said he aims for both projects to be complete by the end of August.