The City of Folly Beach is a popular tourist destination with beach access, local restaurants, and more. With so much to offer, Folly Beach sees a major influx of pedestrians during the summer months.
As tourism grew, there was a lack of permanent pedestrian paths throughout the city, especially along its residential side streets.
Based on the success of a previous pilot project, the city contracted with Davis & Floyd to add new pedestrian paths along 2nd Street East from East Indian Avenue to East Arctic Avenue and East Hudson Avenue from Center Street to 5th Street East near the Pirates Cove Playground. The routes were all located within a 50’ right-of-way owned and maintained by the South Carolina Department of Transportation (SCDOT).
Per the city’s request, we created designs utilizing pervious materials within the existing right-of-way.
Our designs included several existing right-of-way encroachments by residential landscaping, fences, and other homeowner improvements that were not originally approved by the municipality. There was consideration of eliminating existing on-street parking, but this was decided against.
We used available mapping, photographs, and surveys to develop conceptual designs for layouts, typical sections, landscape buffers, and paving materials for the multiuse paths. After receiving feedback from elected officials and staff, our team revised the conceptual design and established it as the city’s preferred alternative.