VISION → PLAN → PREPARE → FUND → BUILD

FUNDING WAVELAND'S FUTURE

A More Strategic Approach to Infrastructure, Coastal Funding & Coleman Avenue Revitalization

Major infrastructure projects cost millions of dollars. Drainage, streets, water and sewer, coastal protection, waterfront improvements and community development cannot all be funded through Waveland’s municipal budget alone. State and federal funding partnerships are essential to our future.

Over the last several months, I have taken a deeper look at Waveland’s experience with GOMESA, Tidelands and the Mississippi Main Street Revitalization Grant Program—what has worked, what has not, and what other Mississippi communities are doing successfully.

The conclusion I reached is simple:

We have demonstrated that Waveland can compete for outside funding. Now we need to become more deliberate about how we compete.

A Five-Year Plan for Waveland

I believe Waveland should establish a rolling five-year Infrastructure and Funding Plan that identifies our major projects in advance and matches each project with the funding source best suited for it.

Projects would be evaluated according to need, urgency, cost, public benefit, economic impact, engineering readiness, grant eligibility, available match and potential funding source. The plan would be updated annually so Waveland always has a pipeline of well-defined, grant-ready projects.

Four Major Priorities

Drainage
Instead of pursuing one enormous citywide request, evaluate and rank Waveland’s 11 watersheds and pursue the strongest projects in manageable phases. The document proposes considering a first phase in the range of $2.5–$3.5 million, followed by subsequent phases.

Beachfront & Public Access
Develop a comprehensive Beachfront and Public Access Master Plan so improvements to the beach, pavilions, Coleman Avenue, the Lighthouse and other waterfront assets become parts of one coordinated vision rather than isolated projects.

Center City Infrastructure
Continue building on Waveland’s successful phased approach. The City requested $4 million for the first Center City Infrastructure Improvements project and received the full amount; Phase II followed and Phase III has been submitted.

Coleman Avenue Business District
Use economic-development and Main Street funding opportunities to help implement the long-standing vision of Coleman Avenue as the heart of Waveland.

Reimagining Coleman Avenue

Waveland’s comprehensive plan already calls for the City to “Regenerate Coleman Avenue as the heart of the City of Waveland.”

I believe a comprehensive Coleman Avenue Business District Revitalization Plan should include four interconnected projects:

Town Green Amphitheater & Public Gathering Space
A permanent covered stage and gathering area capable of supporting concerts, festivals, markets, patriotic celebrations, children’s activities and community events—creating activity and foot traffic for Coleman Avenue businesses.

Coleman Avenue Gateway
Create a recognizable architectural entrance at Beach Boulevard that establishes Coleman Avenue’s identity as Waveland’s downtown business district.

Bourgeois Street Municipal Parking
Investigate acquiring and developing property for attractive, well-lit, ADA-accessible public parking convenient to Coleman Avenue businesses and events.

Waveland Community Center
When the current lease ends, consider renovating the Incubator building into a multipurpose community center serving youth, seniors, veterans, civic organizations, nonprofits, educational programs and small-business development.

Matching Projects With the Right Funding

The strategy is not to make every project fit whichever grant happens to be available.

Instead, Waveland should develop the project first, establish the priority, and then pursue the funding source designed to support it.

GOMESA → coastal protection, hurricane resilience and qualifying infrastructure
Tidelands → beachfront, waterfront and public-access improvements
Main Street Revitalization → downtown economic development, gathering spaces, streetscapes, parking, wayfinding and Coleman Avenue revitalization
Other State & Federal Programs → layered into projects where appropriate.

The Bottom Line

We cannot control how much funding Congress, the Mississippi Legislature or state agencies make available. We cannot control how many communities compete against us.

What we can control is our preparation.

I want Waveland to enter every funding cycle with our priorities established, projects properly scoped, costs documented, engineering underway where appropriate and the supporting information already assembled.

This isn’t about chasing grants.

It is about having a vision, building a plan, preparing our projects, pursuing the right funding, learning from every success and every failure, and steadily moving Waveland forward.