DOWNTOWN BRIDGE After delay, demolition to start



The length of the delay is nowhere near the length of the project's history.
By ROGER G. SMITH
CITY HALL REPORTER
YOUNGSTOWN -- The bridge project from hell is freezing over.
Demolition of the Marshall Street Bridge is to start Wednesday, marking the final stage in an odyssey to replace the 71-year-old crossing spanning more than a decade.
"It's something we've been looking forward to a long time," said Carmen Conglose Jr., the city's deputy director of public works.
Removing the eyesore is important to improving the image of downtown's west end, he said.
The $3.16 million project is to be finished by Oct. 31, 2005. Soda Construction Co. of Niles will do the work.
The 326-foot crossing on Marshall Street, between Oak Hill Avenue and Front Street, has been closed the past two years because of structural problems. In 1998, one lane and both sidewalks were closed for the same reason.
The bridge closure affects traffic on Mahoning Avenue coming into downtown. The closure forces vehicles from the city's West Side that normally used the bridge to instead use the county-owned Spring Common Bridge over the Mahoning River on Mahoning Avenue.
A new bridge will reopen a major link to Interstate 680, downtown and ease traffic on Spring Common.
Project held up
Bids were to be opened May 19 with the project starting a month later. But technical changes delayed the bidding, Conglose said.
Then, there were myriad problems that needed to be solved before awarding the contract and starting work. One was coordinating the work with railroads that use tracks under the dilapidated bridge. Another was working the project into the contractor's schedule.
"The process to get started just took a while," Conglose said.
Then there was the money.
The federal government provided $1.3 million for bridge rehabilitation in 1989. Mahoning County was to provide the balance for a $2 million project.
But the cost jumped by a third in the ensuing 15 years and the county money dried up in the interim.
The city recently got $1.4 million in federal money from the Eastgate Regional Council of Governments to go with the original funding. The city is using $460,000 of its own federal funding to make the project happen.
The bridge couldn't be replaced without Eastgate's help, Conglose said. Changing project estimates left the city's share unclear until this spring, he said. The city didn't have the $1.4 million that Eastgate ultimately provided, he said.
When plans began
The delay pales compared with the project's history.
Rehabilitation plans started in 1987. Costs became so high that officials decided in 1993 that replacement became more cost effective.
The state approved replacing the bridge in 1997. But historic preservation issues stopped the project in 2000.
The bridge is registered as a historic structure with the state because of the unique design of its truss. It is one of just a few such designs left in Ohio.
The city spent a couple of years demonstrating that replacing the bridge was the best option, finally persuading the state and federal governments to allow its demolition, Conglose said.
rgsmith@vindy.com

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