The chair of Lewes’s African American Heritage Commission expresses some frustration over the progress of a replica pavilion at the city’s Johnnie Walker Beach.
The beach, then known as Beach 2, was the city’s beach for Black residents and visitors during the segregation era. It featured a large pavilion that served as a gathering spot for beachgoers. In recent years, building a replica pavilion on the site, ideally on or near its original location, has been a priority for the city’s African American Heritage Commission.
Now, however, that process seems to be bogging down. At a meeting last week, AAHC Chair Darryl Daisey voiced some concerns about how long things are taking. While his commission has seen a rendering of the pavilion, actual site plans have been hung up with city-contracted engineering and architecture firm GMB for several months. Daisey noted that the project has a lengthy process to go through, and that can’t start until plans are completed.
“This is like four or five months going on, and so I can't even start this clock until it moves out of that, right?” he said.
That “clock” involves approval from an array of city committees and subcommittees - the Johnnie Walker Beach subcommittee, Daisey’s AAHC, the city’s Parks and Recreation committee, and a work session and public hearing from the Mayor and Council before it can be approved. That pathway could take months, and the city has said it would not undertake any construction during the summer season when city beaches are packed.
The project will also need approval from DNREC, which is not a foregone conclusion. The new pavilion would encroach on protected land near the shore, if the original plan is followed, meaning that approval from state authorities is also necessary.
Daisey said he was frustrated that the project seems likely to have to wait more than a year to come to completion.
“I thought we could do it by 2027, but everything you're telling me says no,” he said to Parks and Marina Administrator Giulia Kirsch. “But if it stays in GMB, then the summer of 2028 is in jeopardy.”
Kirsch said that she, along with council members Khalil Saliba and Trina Brown-Hicks, were trying to get the plans in front of the city as soon as possible.
“The three of us are actively working the problem and trying to make sure that we get answers and trying to move the process along,” she told Daisey. “We're doing everything that we can.”
Also unresolved is the project’s funding. In its most recent budget cycle, the city council allotted just $15,000 for design fees, meaning that officials will need to allocate money for actual construction in a future budget. There is no estimate of the project’s cost yet.
