Wildwood to Receive $678K from Ocean Wind Trust

WILDWOOD – The City of Wildwood is one of five shore communities named to receive part of $2.8 million in grants from the Ocean Wind Pro-NJ Grantor Trust.
In a press release dated May 10, the trust announced that Wildwood was one of the five communities that would share nearly $2.8 million in funds that would go to local coastal infrastructure and resiliency projects to combat tidal flooding and erosion issues. 
The grantor is a fund established by Ocean Wind 1, the first of two proposed wind turbine projects planned by Danish company Ørsted. 
According to the release, several of the recipients and funded projects are also receiving matching funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
Wildwood is slated to receive $678,015 to build upon a FEMA-funded pump station, completed in 2020, with the addition of three elements, including a living shoreline along Mediterranean and West Andrews avenues; the replacement and supplementation of failing bulkheads with vinyl bulkheads at several points along Otten’s Harbor; and the replacement of a crushed drainage pipe in the vicinity of the project.
Other recipients of this round of grants include the Township of Little Egg Harbor ($719,250), the Borough of Longport ($368,750), the City of Margate ($446,88), and the City of Ventnor ($546,003). All five projects have expected completion dates on or before May 2025. 
The release said this is the second round of trust funding. The initial call for interested applicants resulted in 17 requests totaling nearly $19 million, more than five times the amount the trust set aside for the resiliency round. 
The initial responding municipalities include Avalon, North Wildwood, Ocean City, Sea Isle City, Wildwood, and Wildwood Crest in Cape May County, plus 11 more communities in Atlantic and Ocean counties.
Details surrounding the trust’s next Request for Expressions for Interest directed toward New Jersey’s small, women-owned and minority-owned businesses will be published soon at www.pronjtrust.org.