Navarre Beach
Stretch of State Road 399 to reopen May 9 The road will connect Navarre Beach to Opal Beach Tom McLaughlin Tuesday April 29th, 2008 NAVARRE BEACH — The long-awaited first step toward reopening the scenic road on Santa Rosa Island is “pretty much finished.” Jerry Eubanks, superintendent of Gulf Islands National Seashore, said the section of State Road 399 connecting Navarre Beach to Opal Beach will reopen May 9. “People are asking. We know a lot of people will use it once they know that section is opened,” Eubanks said. The seven-mile stretch, which has been closed since Hurricane Dennis in 2005 wrecked repairs made following Hurricane Ivan in 2004, won’t be anything fancy, Eubanks said. “The road is not finished looking,” he said. “It’s a smooth drivable road, but it’s not the new first-class road some people might expect.” Between today and the opening, crews from Panhandle Grading and Pavement in Pensacola will be finishing up “odds and ends.” “They’ll be doing some striping, some cleanup, making sure everything is shipshape,” Eubanks said. The company has been on the job since about the beginning of the year after the Federal Highway Administration decided to put up about $3.5 million for the repairs. The work included rebuilding two lanes from Navarre Beach to Opal Beach and repairing some of the parking and picnic areas at the park on the Gulf Islands National Seashore property. A one-lane “emergency” road was also to be built between Opal Beach and Pensacola Beach. Eubanks said Opal Beach won’t be completely visitor friendly. Portable toilets will be available, but it will probably be next year before beach buildings are replaced. He said the last stretch of J. Earle Bowden Way, named for a newspaper editor known as the “father” of the Gulf Islands National Seashore, could be finished between Opal Beach and Pensacola Beach by summer.