A split City Council on Monday authorize the city manager to sign a pre-application for grant funds to improve the boardwalk along a portion of the city’s waterfront.

The council voted 3-2 for the city to seek money to replace the existing wooden boardwalk with a concrete boardwalk. Council members Richard Brooks, Virginia Finnerty voted for the motion. Council members Doug Mercer and William Pitt voted against it.

Mayor Mac Hodges said he wants to “move forward with it” in regard to replacing the existing boardwalk with a concrete boardwalk, which would be a two-phase project.

The grant, if awarded, would come through the N.C. Division of Coastal Management’s Public Beach and Coastal Waterfront Grant Program. DCM awards about $1 million a year in matching grants to improve access to public beaches and coastal waterways. The money for the grant comes from the N.C. Parks and Recreation Trust Fund.

Unless the city gets the grant, it’s likely the city will not proceed with the project, according to city officials.

The council members who supported the move said they believe replacing the wooden boardwalk with a concrete boardwalk would be more cost-effective in the long run. The existing boardwalk, which is deteriorating, was built in 2001. Its planking has been replaced once during in the past 16 years. John Rodman, the city’s director of community and cultural resources, said he received information indicating a concrete boardwalk would have a life of about 25 years.

Mercer and Pitt oppose the project for different reasons.

Mercer expressed concern that there is no guarantee that if the city is awarded the first grant for the project’s initial phase it would receive a grant for the second phase of the project. He said he talked with two people who oppose a concrete replacement, citing concerns that concrete would “heat up” and be uncomfortable to walk on.

During a meeting last week, Mercer said that replacing the boardwalk’s wooden slats with concrete slats would require replacing the boardwalk’s wooden pilings with concrete pilings (similar to those at the Municipal Pier at the waterfront) because the wooden pilings would not support the weight of the concrete slats. Mercer also said he would prefer to use the $500,000 earmarked for the west end of the boardwalk to help pay for replacing the bulkhead at Havens Gardens.

“Kristi, you mentioned at the last meeting or so the potential for a half-million-dollar grant to rehab the boardwalk. I’d much rather apply for a half-million-dollar grant to do the bulkhead work. It’s only been two or three years since we replaced all the planking on the boardwalk,” Mercer said then.

Pitt said that for some people wood would be easier to walk on than concrete. He said the city should ask the public whether a wooden boardwalk or a concrete boardwalk would be the preferred option. Pitt said wooden slats would be “softer” to walk on than concrete slats. Pitt said the city has a habit of making decisions without consulting the public, and the boardwalk issue is such an example.

Finnerty said, “It just seems to me to be going every 15 to 16 years going through a three-year process to replace it, it’s too often, to me. I would think 25 years is more desirable.”

Rodman said the grant may be less than the approximately $400,000 to $450,000 the city will seek. If the city is awarded a lower amount and believes it cannot complete the project, it can refuse the grant. Being awarded a grant does not obligate the city to proceed with the project.

Under the grant conditions, the DCM grant would pay for 90 percent of the project, with the city providing the money to cover the remaining 10 percent of the project’s cost, about $50,000, said Rodman at the council’s Feb. 13 meeting. The grant application is due in April 10

The city’s capital-improvements plan for fiscal year 2017-2018, which begins July 1, nearly $500,000 to replace the west end of the boardwalk during the 2017-2018 fiscal year budget and another $500,000 to replace the east end of the boardwalk in fiscal year 2018-2019.