Crews last week were working on repairs of the retaining wall on Lakefront Boulevard.

The Lakefront Bouelvard retaining wall repairs should be done by early June, Dunkirk Department of Public Works Director Randy Woodbury told the city Common Council Tuesday.

He said he had just walked the site with the engineer and contractor. “We walked the whole area, it’s going well,” he said. While there are “a couple extra blocks that need to be replaced,” Woodbury stressed that there is money for that in the project budget.

The work is expected to cost about $950,000. It will be paid for with the help of federal and state emergency grants, as the October 2019 storm that initially damaged the wall was declared a disaster by the federal government. The wall was further damaged by storms last autumn. Lakefront Boulevard has been closed since the 2019 storm, except for a short section near the Steger high rise apartments.

“We’re shooting for the end of this month, beginning of next month to get it all done,” Woodbury said.

He added that he wanted “to make it look perfect and much stronger than it was,” adding that project workers planned a decorative powder coating of the rails.

Woodbury said in the OBSERVER last year that the wall blocks need stronger vertical bracing with the wall itself, which is set into the rock.

The wall was entirely rebuilt in 2015.