City officials settled on a design for the Providence River pedestrian bridge more than three months ago, but the details of the high-profile project remain unclear.
Providence officials overseeing the design and construction of the proposed span that will be built on the piers of the soon-to-be-demolished Interstate 195 crossing say they’re not sure when it will be completed, how much it will cost and even how it will be paid for.
The city says it is still taking the initial steps of ironing out an agreement with the R.I. Department of Transportation that will outline their roles as the work moves forward.
The price tag for the pedestrian bridge as it is designed now – complete with café, a boardwalk and a terrace for informal street performances – is roughly $5.5 million. But city planners are hoping the company that designed the bridge can tweak the blueprints to cut the cost to $4 million.
“We’ve committed to building the bridge as close to the winning design as possible,” said Bonnie Nickerson, the Planning Department’s director of long-range planning. “But there are a lot of things we can explore in terms of materials and other things without impacting the character of the bridge itself.”
Even with a cost reduction, questions remain about where the money will come from.
Plans for a pedestrian bridge came about as a result of the $610 million Iway project to relocate I-195 in the capital. The state set aside $2 million to remove the supports of the now-abandoned highway bridge over the Providence River, including five piers set into the river bottom. Instead of removing the piers, that money has been designated for the construction of the pedestrian bridge on top of that existing foundation.
Now officials are exploring other funding sources. Last fall, the federal government rejected an application for a $2 million Transportation Investment Generating Economy Recovery – or TIGER – grant. The city is looking into forming partnerships with the private sector to help finance the project.
The pedestrian bridge is just a small part of the Iway project, which straightened Interstate 195’s serpentine route through Providence, and moved its junction with Interstate 95. While the old roadway is demolished, city and state officials and the business community have focused on plans to redevelop the cleared property bordering downtown and the Jewelry District, otherwise called the Knowledge District.
Still, the pedestrian bridge has gotten its share of attention.
City planners look at the span for foot traffic and biking as a key connector between Providence’s East Side – specifically its College Hill and Fox Point neighborhoods – and the Knowledge District, which is home to such institution as Brown University’s Warren Alpert Medical School.
The east end of the bridge would be located off South Water Street while the west end would feed into and out of a planned park off Dyer Street.
With much fanfare, the city held a design competition last year that attracted proposals from architectural firms nationwide. Officials narrowed the choices to 11 finalists.
A committee of resident and business representatives, administrators from Brown and Rhode Island School of Design and city and state officials selected a design firm from Detroit; inFORM studio, and New York engineering company Buro Happold.
Michael Guthrie, design principal at inFORM, said the design was based on in-depth research of the site, as well as the city’s history and culture. For instance, the bridge would utilize timber-frame trusses intended to reflect the city’s maritime history and the materials used to construct old mill buildings in the Jewelry District.
“It was important to us to have this bridge woven into the city’s urban fabric,” Guthrie said.
But Guthrie said the café is only a suggestion. The space could have other uses, such as for kayak rentals.
City planners are already investigating the plausibility of partnering with Brown or nearby Johnson & Wales University to use the site.
“We’re looking several years out,” Nickerson said. “Today it might be hard to maintain that type of space, but when the Knowledge District is fully built-out 10 years from now, that could be a very vibrant spot.”
State transportation officials say preliminary plans are to build the span in phases, while officials nail down more funding, first the bridge itself, then the amenities such as a café. The design also calls for a sun deck and space for sculptures.
Nickerson said the city is already thinking about upkeep of the bridge, with plans in the works to form a group of businesses and nonprofits that will work with the city’s parks department to maintain the bridge.
Initially, the construction timeline called for the bridge to be completed in 2013, along with the Iway project itself.
But DOT spokesman Charles St. Martin said recently that the schedule could change. After the city and state work out an agreement, inFORM will be called in to develop more detailed schematics and adjustments to lower the cost.
St. Martin projected there will be about eight months of design work and another year and a half of construction.
The slow pace of government is nothing new for Guthrie and inFORM.
He said the firm won a similar competition to build a pedestrian bridge in Detroit in 1997. The $7 million cable-stayed bridge was completed last year, after substantial changes. •
