March 1, 2010

Contacts:       Mark Stenglein, Hennepin County Commissioner: 612-348-7882
Cara Lee, Public Affairs: 612-348-6883

Lowry Avenue Bridge construction open house on March 23

A new icon is under construction in Minneapolis.

Residents can learn more about the Lowry Avenue Bridge construction schedule at an open house from 6:30 to 8 p.m., with a short presentation at 7 p.m., March 23 at East Side Neighborhood Services, 1700 2nd St. NE., Minneapolis. Hennepin County Transportation Department and Lunda Construction Inc. staff will update residents about the project, provide a timeline of upcoming key construction dates, and be available to answer questions. “We are excited to move forward with this project, and it is great to see work crews in the Mississippi River,” said Hennepin County Commissioner Mark Stenglein.  “It might get noisy at times in the next few months, but the noise means people are working and Hennepin County is going to get a new bridge.  We appreciate the community’s patience and continued support.”

Demolition of the Super America building at the intersection of Marshall Street and Lowry Avenue continues; all debris is scheduled to be removed by the end of this week. Once the building is down, a chain link safety fence will be installed to keep people out of the work zone. Cofferdams are in the water, and crews will be driving approximately 100 river pilings in the river beginning tomorrow, Tuesday, March 2. Residents can expect loud pounding noises during the day from roughly 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. throughout the spring.

After extensive input from the community, residents can look forward to a new Lowry Avenue Bridge with:

- A basket-handle steel arch design that spans more than 400 feet across the navigational channel of the Mississippi River.

- Expanded sidewalks with unobstructed views of the Mississippi River.

- A high efficiency LED lighting system for the steel arch that is color adjustable.

- An anti-icing system that senses the conditions for icing and automatically disperses a measured amount of anti-icing material across the surface. This system can also be remotely controlled from the county’s Public Works Facility or even a snowplow.

- A new underground stormwater treatment facility called a DC sand filter that serves more than 80 acres of the surrounding community.

The Lowry Avenue Bridge, a Minneapolis landmark since 1905, was imploded in June 2009. Hennepin County engineers, in consultation with Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates, determined it was necessary to close the bridge for safety reasons in April 2008, due to continued structural issues with one of the bridge piers. In 2004, bridge engineers discovered a pier had rotated out of vertical alignment; further rotation introduced an unacceptable risk.

The Lowry Avenue Bridge carries Hennepin County State Aid Highway 153 over the Mississippi River between north and northeast Minneapolis. The bridge had been substantially renovated in 1958 to accommodate river barge traffic.