If you drove West Salisbury Street this week and noticed a utility crew working around the smaller bridge near Lees Cut, you were watching the actual start of a project most people on the island still think is two years away. The number everyone remembers from the news back in January was spring 2028. That was never wrong, exactly. It just wasn't the whole story, and the part that got left out is the part that's happening right now.
The Number Everyone Remembers
In early January, WECT reported that the North Carolina Department of Transportation would replace three aging bridges connecting Wrightsville Beach to the mainland as a single project, listed as HB-0040. The plan called for rebuilding the Causeway Drive bridge on US-76 as a four-lane span with a center median, plus two bridges on West Salisbury Street on US-74, one over Lees Cut and one over Banks Channel, each reduced to two lanes but gaining 10 to 12-foot multi-use paths and six-foot bike lanes. The estimated cost was $105 million. The estimated start was spring 2028.
That headline stuck. It's the version most residents carry around, filed under "not yet a problem." A month later, Balfour Beatty was named as the contractor after a bid process that opened in September 2025, and Town Manager Haynes Brigman told the Board of Aldermen there was already talk the timeline might move earlier than 2028, not later, according to Port City Daily. By April, the town had formally asked NCDOT to hold off on major construction until after the 2027 tourist season, putting the real start closer to September or October 2027, as WilmingtonBiz reported. Nobody involved was talking about 2026.
What Actually Started This Month
Here's what the town's own project page says right now, which is a different sentence than the one from January. Geotechnical boring on the larger Salisbury span, which the town calls the Salisbury Long Bridge, wrapped up in the spring. Utility relocation on the smaller Lees Cut bridge began this summer. And on July 20, contractor crews started physically moving power poles near that bridge, according to Coastal Review, which noted the work is happening outside the travel lanes and isn't expected to affect traffic yet. The same town page states that construction on the Lees Cut bridge is expected to begin by the end of this year, though the span itself won't close to traffic until after Labor Day, which falls on September 7.
Laid out by date, the gap between the story people remember and the one that's unfolding looks like this:
- January 2026 — NCDOT announces the three-bridge project, HB-0040, estimated at $105 million with a spring 2028 start
- February 2026 — Balfour Beatty named contractor; town officials say the timeline could shift earlier
- April 2026 — Town asks NCDOT to delay major work until after the 2027 season
- April 2026 — Geotechnical borings begin on the Salisbury Long Bridge
- Summer 2026 — Utility relocation begins on the smaller Lees Cut bridge
- July 20, 2026 — Crews begin relocating power poles near the Lees Cut bridge
- After Labor Day, September 7, 2026 — The Lees Cut bridge is expected to close for construction
- Late 2032 — Overall project completion estimate, per NCDOT
Labor Day, five weeks from today, is the earliest point on the town's own timeline when the smaller bridge can close to traffic. The actual closure could land anytime after that date through the end of the year, but even the earliest edge of that window is a full year and a half ahead of the spring 2028 figure most people have in their heads.
The Bigger Bridges Are Still an Open Question
The smaller bridge has a real, if approximate, closure window. The two larger ones don't. At a Bridge Replacement Committee meeting in mid-June, members pressed NCDOT on a final design and construction schedule for the Causeway and Salisbury Long bridges and came away without one. WWAY reported that an NCDOT representative told the committee there is currently no deadline for completing the design phase. Committee chair Neal Andrew attributed part of the delay to the complexity of the contracting arrangement NCDOT is using, a construction manager/general contractor model meant to control cost and duration but still working through the details as of that meeting.
Susan Bullock, chair of the Wrightsville Beach Chamber of Commerce, used a comparison at that same meeting that's worth sitting with:
"Live without the two Northside bridges for two weeks and you will have a sense of the difficulty."
Two weeks without both Salisbury bridges is a hypothetical, not a scheduled event, but it's the kind of scenario the Chamber is already using to plan. By early July, NCDOT confirmed the project's overall completion estimate at late 2032, per WECT, which puts the total build window somewhere in the four-to-six-year range Chamber director Kyle Hanlin referenced when he called the disruption tough but said the improvements would be worth it in the end.
What Won't Happen, at Least by the Current Plan
The most reassuring detail to come out of the mid-July public meeting wasn't about timing. It was about lane counts. Andrew told residents there will be a period when Salisbury closes completely while Causeway stays fully open, and that the town's understanding with NCDOT is that at least two lanes will remain open eastbound onto the island and two lanes westbound off of it at all times during construction, according to WWAY's coverage of that meeting. That's a meaningful floor. It doesn't mean traffic will move at normal speed. It means the plan on the table isn't a scenario where the island loses all vehicle access at once.
Why This Matters for the Loop
The bridges aren't just how residents get on and off the island. Two of the three carry the John T. Nesbitt Loop, the 2.45-mile sidewalk path that circles the town center and gets used by, in Brigman's own description to WilmingtonBiz, thousands of pedestrians a week. The Loop was built in 1992 after Nesbitt, the town's Director of Public Works from 1979 to 1999, redirected unused public works funds toward a sidewalk so people could walk the island without dodging highway traffic. It was named for him after his death in 2006. Brigman told WilmingtonBiz in May that, alongside the beach and the Intracoastal Waterway, "The Loop is one of the town's most treasured amenities."
That's part of why the town has been so deliberate about the bridge project's design phase. Brigman told WilmingtonBiz the town has had direct conversations with NCDOT and the contractor about preserving some form of pedestrian access across the bridges even during construction, and the town has separately hired a contractor to design improvements to the Loop itself as a long-term asset, independent of the bridge work. Neither piece has a finished plan yet. But the intent, at least as stated, is that walking the Loop shouldn't disappear during construction. It may just look different for a while, particularly on the Salisbury side.
What to Actually Watch For
If you use the Loop or cross either Salisbury bridge regularly, the next few months are the ones that matter, not 2028. Expect construction activity to become visible near the Lees Cut bridge before Labor Day, and expect an actual closure of that span sometime after September 7. The bigger bridges, Causeway and Salisbury Long, remain in design with no confirmed start date, which means the September or October 2027 window the town requested is a request, not a commitment from NCDOT. The town's bridge project page is the most current source for closure dates as they firm up, and it's worth checking directly rather than relying on the January headline that's still circulating around the island.
None of this changes what makes Wrightsville Beach worth walking every morning. It just means the disruption most people expected in two years is already unloading power poles down the street. If you're weighing what a few years of construction means for a specific block, a rental, or a property near either bridge, that's the kind of detail worth talking through with someone who's tracking it closely. Lynne Galloway has lived on this island since 1999 and has been working this market since 2004. Let's Connect if you want a clearer read on how this project intersects with a specific address or plan.
