Eureka officials will hold a public hearing on the Allenton Bridge project at 7 p.m. Tuesday, April 5, at The Timbers of Eureka, 1 Coffey Park Lane.
Eureka Mayor Sean Flower said the hearing will give residents the opportunity to ask questions about the planned new bridge.
“It’s basically more of an information hearing at this point,” Flower said. “The plans are set. MoDOT (the Missouri Department of Transportation) has pretty much given us as much approval as they’re going to give before the final approval,” Flower said. “We are really just waiting on railroad approval at this point and we will commence.”
The plans have to receive approval from both the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad and the Union Pacific Railroad.
Flower said he is hoping for that approval in April or May, but that’s out of the city’s control.
“Once we have those approvals, things are then in our control, and (the project will) start moving,” he said.
Flower said the city is required to hold the meetings as part of the process of securing final approval from MoDOT.
Flower said construction of the new bridge may start in the fall, and he anticipates the project could take up to nine months, depending on weather conditions.
The federal government will pay $1,928,080 to cover some of the design and construction cost for the new bridge.
Even though the project was originally estimated to cost $3,856,559, Flower said the final figure could be closer to $5 million to $6 million.
“It may be a little less, but it’s kind of a ballpark,” Flower said, noting that supply chain issues and increasing costs of labor and materials.
City Administrator Craig Sabo said $6 million may be a better estimate for the final cost of the project. He said the design of the bridge has been changed to meet the railroads’ requirements.
He said the city will pay its portion of the project’s costs with funds from a 1/2-cent sales tax for public safety that was approved by voters in April 2018.
Voters approved Proposition E to build a new police facility, replace the Allenton Bridge and finance short- and long-term flood prevention and mitigation efforts.
The city had estimated the sales tax would generate $15.9 million over 20 years.
The new bridge will be built just west of the current bridge. It will have four lanes for traffic and a dedicated pedestrian lane.
The plans for the new bridge can be found on the city’s website, eureka.mo.us.
Flower said the current bridge will be torn down at some point during the construction of the new bridge, but it will be open at the start of construction.
The Allenton Bridge was built in 1928, and Eureka took it over in the early 1970s.
MoDOT gave the bridge a sufficiency rating of 2 out of 100 after its last inspection in November 2015.
A meeting of the Board of Aldermen will follow the public hearing on April 5.