Lido Beach Renourishment Project Almost Halfway Done

Works on the Lido Beach emergency renourishment project are progressing well and on schedule, according to the City of Sarasota.

The contractor for the City, Coastal Dredging Corp., will move approximately 185,000 cubic yards of sand to renourish the beach, restoring the shoreline and dunes and protecting public property and infrastructure.

Now over two months into the project, the contractors are roughly 40 percent complete as they work their way south, the city officials reported.

When fully completed, this emergency renourishment project will address the critical erosion of Lido Beach by replacing sand that was lost during Tropical Storm Hermine (2016), Hurricane Irma (2017) and subsequent storms and tidal action.

The project cost of $3.9 million is being shared by the City of Sarasota, Sarasota County, the state and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), with the City’s funding portion being approximately $600,000.

The City and the Army Corps are also proceeding with a larger, long-term renourishment of Lido Beach that would regularly recycle additional sand from Big Pass over a 50-year period as needed. That project is expected to begin in the fall of 2019, pending ongoing legal challenges.