Just a few hundred feet long, the borough’s rebuilt boardwalk will be supplemented by temporary restrooms. (Photo by Wil Fulton. Click to enlarge)

By WIL FULTON

Another familiar sight is returning to the recovering beach community of Sea Bright as summer inches closer: the mini-boardwalk.

According to volunteer coordinator Frank Lawrence, the boardwalk, which he described as an” extended deck,” was built in large part by volunteers from the Foundation to Save the Jersey Shore and the New Jersey Firemen’s Mutual Benevolent Association, who donated their manpower in order to complete the project in just a matter of days.

The new boardwalk, just 171 feet long, replicates the one destroyed during Hurricane Sandy, Lawrence said. “We wanted to get the design as close to the original as possible,” he added.

In addition to the FSJS and FMBA volunteers – who in March collaborated on the creation of a playgroundbuilt to honor the victims of the Sandy Hook School shooting in Newtown, Connecticut – professional builders hired by the borough supervised construction, said Lawrence, who estimated the total cost of materials paid for by the town at $18,000. Paid contractors also installed the handicapped-access ramp, said FSJS construction chairman Brian Boms.

Lawrence said temporary restroom facilities to replace the ones destroyed by Hurricane Sandy would be installed, and the small “snack shack,” most recently run by Woody’s Ocean Grille, is to be turned into a temporary beach facility.

“We’ll use it as a lifeguard office, or to hand out beach badges, something like that,” he said. “The building actually held up pretty well during the storm, all things considered.”

Though small, Lawrence believes the boardwalk means something to the town.

“Beach season is closing in, so it helps to have something there, something to try to replace what was there before,” he said. “We needed something for the season, and we were glad to get this built,” he said.