Construction being done on South Front St. to preserve historic Downtown Wilmington bricks

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — Downtown Wilmington is certainly full of history and the city is trying to preserve some of those roads to history.

On parts of South Front Street in Downtown Wilmington, roads have been closed as the City of Wilmington working to restore its brick streets. Back in 2017, the city amended a policy to ensure that anytime there is repaving work being done where there is brick underneath asphalt, the brick will be uncovered instead of paving over it again with asphalt.

Executive Director of the Historic Wilmington Foundation Travis Gilbert said keeping the historic street is important.

“So, the hand crafted bricks that you see here and the setting that that brick street invokes is very important to maintaining that integrity of our historic district,” said Gilbert.

Gilbert said according to data from the City of Wilmington, there are only a few more blocks left that contain bricks that have yet to be uncovered.