LELAND – A bridge will be replaced and 10 miles of roadway will be repaved in Brunswick County under two new contracts by the N.C. Department of Transportation.
The N.C. 87 bridge over the Batarora Branch west of Leland will be replaced with a modern structure. Built in 1973, the bridge has become functionally obsolete for today's traffic, and its substructures are requiring more maintenance to keep it safely open.
The $1.15 million replacement project by ES Wagner Co. LLC of Piedmont, S.C., will require the road to close when work starts this spring. The contractor will have eight months to complete the project and reopen the road.
The marked detour will be U.S. 17, Interstate 140 and U.S. 74, returning to N.C. 87 in the Sandy Creek community.
Resurfacing work
S.T. Wooten Corp. of Wilson will mill and resurface about four miles of U.S. 17 (Ocean Highway East) in Leland between the U.S. 74 interchange and just east of Hewett-Burton Road. Additionally, a six-mile stretch of Green Hill Road south of Leland will be repaved. The contractor's winning bid totaled $4.8 million.
Because the work will require periodic lane closures over small sections of U.S. 17, the contractor will have to do the work at night from 8 p.m. to 5:30 a.m. any day of the week.
The contractor may start next month and will have until the spring of 2023 to finish.