Construction Beginning on Hatteras Village Pathway

After a nearly 15-year effort, construction is about to begin on a 3.1-mile paved pathway in Hatteras village, which is expected to be completed by August 15, 2021.

The new pathway will stretch from the entrance to the Hatteras ferry docks to the northern village borders, and will include a loop along Eagle Pass Road, making all areas along the route safer and more accessible.

On Friday, March 12, Chairperson for the Hatteras Village Community Center District (HVCCD) and longtime advocate for the project, Dennis Robinson, signed a Notice to Proceed with building the pathway. Barnhill Contracting, which submitted the $1,165,027 winning bid, will oversee the project, which is expected to take a total of 150 days.

Per an estimated timeline for the project, the initial surveying will begin in mid-March. From there, contractors will work on sawing and removals, attending to storm drains, and excavation and grading. The concrete work, which will take roughly 63 days, is expected to begin in the spring, and will coincide with the construction of bridges and guardrails.

“We’re starting on Eagle Pass Road, because that’s the most critical area [of the project],” said Robinson, noting that the upcoming construction should not impact local traffic in Hatteras village. “The concrete pours will be predominantly in the morning, and road closures are not expected at this time.”

The project is being financed through a number of sources that took years to establish.

The Hatteras Pathway project received a $342,640 Tourism Impact Grant in 2020 from the Dare County Tourism Board, which represents about a third of the total project cost. An additional $342,000 or so was collected through the village’s designation as a special tax district, and recently, the Hatteras Village Civic Association, through Cape Hatteras Electric Cooperative (CHEC), received an additional $360,000 loan from the U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Economic Development Loan and Grant (REDLG) Program. The 10-year, no-interest loan stays in the community, so when the loan is repaid, the money can be used for other island projects.

In September of 2020, the CHEC Board of Directors also approved $10,725 to help fund the environmental assessment of the upcoming pathway.

The project has been spearheaded by the Hatteras Village Community Center District Board of Trustees and the Hatteras Village Civic Association, and it has been a long road to reach the actual construction phase of the pathway.

The initial planning for the multi-use pathway in Hatteras village began in 2006 with a corresponding project to establish the Outer Banks Scenic Byway. (The Outer Banks Scenic Byway was officially completed and launched in 2016.)

In 2013, while the Scenic Byway project was in the works, similar pathways were constructed in Avon and the Tri-village communities of Rodanthe, Waves and Salvo, with a pathway for Hatteras village, (as well as Buxton and Frisco), also on the list of future endeavors.

However, funding for the Hatteras project encountered several hurdles in the years that followed.

In 2017, a N.C. House bill was passed to allow for an election in the Hatteras Village Community Center District to decide whether part of the property tax revenue generated in the district could be used for the construction and maintenance of the multi-use pathway. The HVCCD District is a special tax district in Hatteras Village that was established in 1981, and the district is subject to a special ad valorem tax on all taxable real property for the purpose of maintaining and operating the Hatteras Community Center, and other district-owned properties.

In the May 2018 primary election, the “Pathway Referendum” for Hatteras village residents passed with an impressive 94% of the vote, and survey work for the project began in May of 2019 by Albemarle & Associates, Ltd., (the same company that worked on the existing Tri-villages and Avon pathways).

During this timeframe, stakeholders also spent years applying for a variety of grants to help secure more funds

“We’ve been working on it forever, because it started way back with the Scenic Byway committee,” said former HVCCD Chairperson Ricki Shepherd in a late 2020 interview. “After the funding [became a challenge], the tax district board decided to pursue this ourselves, and that’s basically what we’ve been doing.”

“I think it’s a relief to finally begin [construction],” said Robinson. “I know everybody in the village has wanted this for so long, so to be able to finally put this all together is amazing.”

The Island Free Press will post updates on the project as it progresses in the months to come.

In the meantime, a detailed map of the upcoming project can be viewed here.