Holly Hill, FL – The repair of the historic Holly Hill arch damaged in a car accident over a year ago has finally begun.
Part of Calle Grande Street was closed on Monday and will remain closed until March 1st as Saboungi Construction of Ormond Beach fixes up the damage caused in that October 2014 accident.
The Volusia County Council agreed to set aside nearly $130,000 last September to fix the damage. Saboungi is only expected to do around $118,000 worth of fixes, with the rest of the money set aside for contingency purposes.
Volusia County Manager Jim Dinneen told the VCC during that September meeting that the money set aside for the project isn’t nearly enough money to do a full restoration for both of the neglected arches, but it should be enough to fix all the damage caused in the accident and maybe a little more than that.
The county plans to do just enough repair work to keep the arches in roughly the same condition that they were in prior to the 1 vehicle accident that saw it crash into the base of the arch on the south side of Calle Grande Street.
Those arches – which bookend Calle Grande between the entrance to the Riviera Country Club and Golf Course and the Florida East Coast railroad tracks that run roughly parallel to most of US 1 in East Volusia – were built in the 1920’s and used to make up part of the now-defunct Riviera Hotel.
County officials say the accident left the south arch in serious danger of crumbling all over the road, which is why engineers used stabilizing jacks to keep it upright temporarily until a plan was developed to fix it.
Steel posts have since been installed to stabilize the damaged arch and a concrete barrier has been put in place to prevent further damage from vehicles passing by.
The north arch wasn’t damaged at all in the accident.
Prior to the accident, Volusia County planned to transfer the arches to Holly Hill so that the city could work on a plan to restore and preserve them. But city leaders backed away from that plan after the accident, annexing only a small piece of land near the arches.
Dinneen told the VCC last June that Holly Hill officials had no interest in putting up money to fix up the arches, even though there was a desire on the city’s part to keep them around and despite the county willing to consider ECHO funds for the project.
Because the arches are close to Ormond Beach’s border, the county also approached city officials there to see if they would be interested in contributing to the renovation, but Dinneen said Ormond Beach refused to help.
$100,000 of the money being used to fix the damaged arch comes from the insurance company of the driver who crashed into the arch, according to Dinneen. The rest is coming out of the county’s road and bridge budget.
Copyright 2016 Southern Stone Communications.