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A Few Clouds and Breezy Milburn boat launch to get a makeover
Nassau County to spend $3.8 million to renovate basin at the end of September
The rundown Milburn Creek Boat Basin will get a face-lift from Nassau County beginning at the end of the month, county officials say.
The $3.86 million project will include the complete reconstruction of the bulkhead, new floating docks, ramps and a waterside boardwalk. Part of the funding will come from the federal government, the officials said.
Mary Studdert, a spokeswoman for the Nassau County Department of Public Works, said that the year-long project would also include a completely new plaza area with a large trellis surrounding a prefabricated public restroom/office facility. The site will be finished with new trees, shrubs and grasses.
“A bulkhead improvement can be just a bulkhead improvement,” said Nassau Legislator Laura Curran, a Democrat from Baldwin. “This is a project with more vision.”
The site, on Atlantic Avenue, straddles the communities of Baldwin and Freeport. Indeed, the federal funds were initially supposed to improve Cow Meadow Marina in Freeport, which was damaged by Hurricane Sandy. The Federal Emergency Management Agency had earmarked $2 million for the marina, but public works officials said that repairs to Cow Meadow would have easily doubled that. The county would have had to hire an operator for the marina as well, putting the county in the business of running another boat slip. Currently, the only Nassau-owned marina is in Wantagh.
Instead, said Brian Schneider, assistant to the Nassau deputy public works commissioner, the county chose to repair the smaller Milburn Creek Basin. The remaining $1.86 million will come from the county’s capital budget.
Opened in 1971, according to Schneider, Milburn Creek was heavily used in the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s. But a lack of upkeep in the intervening years, in addition to Sandy, left “a big impact on the bulkhead,” he said, noting that even before the storm, the structure was damaged, and the county had to fence off part of the property.
With the decline came some security issues, but Schneider said that the improvements, which include new lighting, will make the site “less attractive to teenagers and transients.”
