FEMA has awarded a $480 million grant to rebuild the Rockaway boardwalk. View Full Caption DNAinfo/Katie Honan

ROCKAWAY BEACH — The taller, stronger concrete boardwalk coming to the Rockaways is going to cost nearly half a billion dollars when it's finished — money the city and state will receive as part of the $60.4 billion Hurricane Sandy relief bill.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency approved $480 million for the Rockaway boardwalk-rebuild project last week. It's scheduled to be finished by 2017 but will open a continuous stretch in 2016.

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Although the city's original estimates for the project put the total cost at $270 million, the feds gave 75 percent more to repair the more than three miles of boardwalk damaged or destroyed by Hurricane Sandy.