Walk Palm Boulevard right now and the island tells two different stories depending on which way you turn. Head toward the south end near Mariner's Walk and the sand is wider than it's been in years, fresh and flat where a dredge pipe sat a few weeks ago. Turn north past 29th Avenue and you're on compacted gravel, stepping around a path that's been torn up and not yet repaved, with the old sidewalk still limping along further up toward 41st. Both scenes are part of the same fight. One side of Isle of Palms just won a race against its own schedule. The other side is still mid-sprint, and the finish line keeps moving because the problem underneath turned out to be worse than anyone expected when they broke ground.
That's the thing worth knowing about this fall on IOP. It isn't one project. It's two, running on completely different clocks, both aimed at the same target: getting the island above a water line that keeps creeping up.
The Beach Finished Two Weeks Early
The city's contractor, Marinex, wrapped Reach 1 of the 2026 beach renourishment project on September 2, pumping roughly 900,000 cubic yards of sand along the stretch from Mariner's Walk to Dewees Inlet in just 35 days, more than two weeks ahead of schedule. For scale, that's about 275 Olympic-size swimming pools of sand, moved and shaped into a new beach and dune line before summer had fully let go.
Crews didn't pause to celebrate. Within 24 hours they'd moved to Reach 2, which runs from the Wild Dunes Property Owners Beach House south to 56th Avenue, with another 800,000 cubic yards planned and a projected 45-day timeline that puts completion somewhere in mid-October, weather depending. Reach 3, the island's south end from the pier down to Breach Inlet, is scheduled to pick up in mid-September and run into November, closing out a project that will have placed up to 2.5 million cubic yards across 19,200 linear feet of shoreline by the time it's done.
None of it has closed the beach. Work zones move in roughly 300-yard fenced sections, and crews build sand walkovers across the dredge pipe so anyone walking down for a swim doesn't have to detour around it. There's a second layer of care built in too: because construction overlaps sea turtle nesting season, crews run nighttime monitoring along active work areas, and if a female turtle tries to nest mid-project, the crew sets a buffer zone around her until she's done.
The money behind this isn't evenly split, which explains why the pace can feel uneven depending on where you live. On the north end, covering Reaches 1 and 2, the city is contributing 47 percent of the cost and the Wild Dunes Community Association is covering the other 53 percent. On the south end, Reach 3, the city is footing the entire bill itself. The city has also requested $5.3 million in state funding, with the local match already secured, against a total project cost that runs toward $27 million once Wild Dunes' contribution is counted in.
The Sidewalk Took Ten Years to Become a Flood Wall
If the beach project is a sprint that beat its own deadline, the Waterway Boulevard project is the opposite: a decade-long slog that started small and kept growing because the ground kept giving city engineers bad news.
Council member Scott Pierce described it plainly in a city meeting this summer. The project began roughly ten years ago as a basic sidewalk repair job between 21st and 41st Avenue, budgeted at just over $1.1 million. It's now a multi-phase flood mitigation project running close to $7 million, with a recent change order alone adding $151,337 just to reroute conflicting water and sewer lines underneath the path.
The reason the scope kept expanding is elevation, not aesthetics. Hillary Aton, the project manager with Thomas & Hutton engineering, explained that portions of the existing pathway sat below 5 feet, and in some spots as low as 4.27 feet, low enough that extreme tides have overtopped it repeatedly. Phase 2 is raising the entire 1.68-mile stretch to 7 feet, a target meant to hold against both routine king tides and the slower creep of sea level rise. Phases 1 and 1A, a $1.5 million flood barrier built inside the Harbor Golf Course at Wild Dunes, were finished in fall 2025. Phase 2 is targeted for completion this fall.
As of mid-July, the work was staggered in three visible stages along the corridor: paving complete from 21st to 29th Avenue, the original path torn out and replaced with temporary compacted gravel from 29th to Timber Lane, and the old, lower path still in place from Timber Lane up to 41st. The city has said most of the corridor stays walkable through construction, gravel included, so this isn't a full closure. It's a moving construction zone that a regular walker or cyclist will notice shifting week to week.
Mayor Phillip Pounds has framed the payoff in practical terms, not just flood-resistance ones. "In the summer, it can be complete standstill out here," he said of Palm Boulevard traffic, noting the new path "should give people an alternative way to traverse the island" once finished. Doug Truslow, who's lived near the start of Waterway Boulevard for about 50 years, has already seen enough of the completed sections to notice a difference: "We're so pleased with everything the city has done to improve the sidewalks, especially going to the beach," he said, adding that it helps "people with disabilities and children riding bikes."
One caveat worth sitting with: Aton was candid that the tidal protection components haven't been tested by a real coastal storm yet. The 7-foot target is an engineering calculation, not a track record.
The Third Project Nobody's Building Yet
There's a piece of this story that extends off the island entirely. The IOP Connector, the nearly four-mile bridge linking Isle of Palms to Mount Pleasant, carries somewhere around 20,000 cars a day, climbing toward 25,000 during peak beach season. Since 2021, SCDOT's restriping has given it buffered bike lanes and a narrower median, a configuration that's been debated ever since but hasn't changed.
What has moved, as of late August, is the land side of that equation. Mount Pleasant is now seeking public input on extending its multi-use path network from Sweetgrass Parkway to Rifle Range Road, a 10-foot concrete connector estimated at $183,245 and partly funded through state transportation alternatives money. Town officials expect to put the project out to bid at the start of 2027, once the public input process wraps. Katie Zimmerman, executive director of the advocacy group Charleston Moves, has said the extension would help close real gaps in a bike and pedestrian network that's been assembled piece by piece for years. On the island end, the city has also built a new 10-foot multi-use path connecting the Connector bridge's shoulder directly into Palm Boulevard's sidewalk, routing bike and foot traffic through Leola Hanbury Memorial Park instead of across the intersection itself.
None of these pieces are finished at the same time or funded by the same source. That's the pattern.
What's Actually Finished Right Now
If you're trying to plan a walk, a bike ride, or just want to know what you'll see out your window this month, here's where things stand as of early September:
- Beach, Reach 1 (Mariner's Walk to Dewees Inlet): Complete as of September 2. Fully open, freshly widened.
- Beach, Reach 2 (Beach House to 56th Avenue): Active now, expected to run into mid-October.
- Beach, Reach 3 (5th/7th Avenue north to the pier, then south to Breach Inlet): Begins mid-September, runs into November.
- Waterway Boulevard path, 21st to 29th Avenue: Paved and finished as of mid-July.
- Waterway Boulevard path, 29th Avenue to Timber Lane: Original path removed, temporary gravel surface in place.
- Waterway Boulevard path, Timber Lane to 41st Avenue: Still the old, lower path, awaiting its turn.
The Line Both Projects Are Chasing
Sand out front, concrete out back, and a bridge that hasn't changed in five years even as the roads on either end of it keep evolving. None of these are cosmetic upgrades. Every one of them is a response to water finding its way somewhere it shouldn't, whether that's a receding dune line or a sidewalk that dips below 5 feet at high tide. The island is racing to get everything, sand and pavement alike, above a threshold it didn't used to need.
For now, that means your daily walk depends on which end of Isle of Palms you start from. Check the fenced zones before you head out, expect the gravel stretch on Waterway Boulevard to keep shifting through fall, and don't be surprised if the section that was finished last month looks different from the one finishing next month. The tide doesn't wait for a construction schedule, and this year, the island isn't waiting either.
If you're weighing a move to the island, want a clearer read on how these projects might affect a specific property, or just want a local perspective on what's changing here, Cynthia Beasley and the Beasley Burns Team know this stretch of coastline well. Reach out anytime to talk through what's actually happening on the ground.
