Council begins talk of eventual Main Street bridge replacement

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com

Nothing lasts forever, and that includes historic 112-year-old bridges.

Replacing the Main Street bridge over the Cedar River may still be many years away, but now is the time to start getting ready for that eventual necessity, City Engineer John Fallis told the Charles City Council at the group’s workshop meeting Wednesday evening.

City bridges are inspected every two years, and the Main Street bridge has been getting a “fair” rating, Fallis said.

Bridge replacement funding from the state and federal government usually goes to the worst bridges, and there are bridges in far worse condition than the Main Street bridge, he said, “so it’s not going to get funded anytime soon with bridge replacement funding.”

Fallis said, “We’ve been talking about this and I feel we need to be a little proactive and start looking at it so if we get some funding, if some funding opens up, we have a project that we will be able to jump on.”

City Administrator Steve Diers said, “Part of the discussion is the potential for federal funding. There’s a lot of federal funding discussion about once-in-a generation funding sources.”

Diers said if there is an opportunity to replace a bridge and not have to borrow $12 million to $15 million the city should be ready for it, although he allowed that price estimate was just a guess and might be “overshooting” the cost.

Fallis proposed contracting with the Calhoun-Burns and Associates engineering firm from West Des Moines to do a feasibility study looking at options for the bridge.

“The process would begin with a feasibility study, and then go into preliminary design, refine it, go into final design, get construction documents and basically you have a project you can sit on a shelf and wait for it to get funded so you’d have a shovel-ready project,” Fallis said.

Because the Main Street bridge is on the National Register of Historic Places, the city will need to work with the Charles City Historical Preservation Committee as well as state and federal groups.

The lump sum fee proposed by Calhoun-Burns is for $19,300, which includes $15,400 for the feasibility study looking at long-term options for the bridge, and $3,900 working with engineering and consulting firm EOR Iowa LLC on a historical review.

“The existing bridge is of significance not only due to the connectivity it creates for the local street system, but also in the annals of bridge history,” Calhoun-Burns said. “Given the bridge’s historical significance as well as its size and location in the heart of Charles City, the project will have significant administrative review by multiple agencies. That being said, we propose beginning with a feasibility study to determine the required steps to satisfy the appropriate review agencies as well as determine appropriate long-term options for the site.

“The goal for the feasibility study will be to determine the needed reviews, an expected timeline of the process as well as some budgetary cost figures,” Calhoun-Burns said.

Council member DeLaine Freeseman asked what the shelf life of the study was.

“How long can we leave it lay there and not utilize it before we’d have to redo it?” he asked.

“Actually quite a while. Years,” Fallis said. “The specifications will always change a little bit. The DOT always has supplemental specifications that come out. You’ll have to massage it a little bit, but the overall design would not change.”

He said the feasibility wouldn’t get into detailed construction designs and plans. Those would come later.

Mayor Dean Andrews said people are going to ask what’s wrong with the existing bridge and why it needs to be replaced.

“We could point to it has a 12-year expected life” according to its “fair” rating, Fallis said. “But also, the one thing is just to be prepared in case something would happen. It’s going to be a process just to get plans done and get plans approved.”

Fallis said even if the city decided to replace the bridge now it would probably be years before construction could begin.

Freeseman said, “I think back to the old trail bridge and think how many times I ran across that and rode a bike across that and that dip kept getting bigger and bigger and all of a sudden one morning it’s in the river.”

He said losing the trail bridge was an inconvenience, but losing the Main Street bridge would be much more serious for the community.

Fallis told the council to remember that another bridge that’s just as old is the Gilbert Street bridge.

“It’s not nearly as big, but it’s from the same era,” he said.

Council members asked Fallis to find out how much additional it would cost to study both bridges, and Andrews joked that he should ask for the “BOGO” deal – buy one, get one.

The Calhoun-Burns proposal will be on the agenda for council discussion and possible action on Monday’s regular meeting agenda, Fallis said.

According to the Iowa Department of Transportation, Iowa has almost 4,500 bridges rated “poor” and almost 10,000 bridges rated “fair,” although the majority of “poor” bridges are low-traffic bridges that might not be economically justified to replace and that can continue to be used with appropriate restrictions.

Another 9,300 Iowa bridges are considered in “good” condition. “The common age used to describe how long a bridge should last has been 50 years,” the Iowa DOT says, adding that bridges that are unsafe are closed.

Also at the workshop meeting Wednesday, the council:

• Discussed Facade Improvement Program applications, from Diamond Corp. at 625 N. Main St. to paint the exterior of the building and replace some of the faux brick panels, and from Stewart Realty Co. at 503 Kelly St. to replace windows, repair an architectural trellis, replace a concrete patio and replace the roof.

The Diamond Corp. project cost is $8,900 and the company is seeking the 50% grant allowed, for $4,450. The total cost of the Stewart Realty project is $43,940, and that company is seeking the maximum grant allowed, $10,000, toward window replacement and trellis repair.

• Heard a report from Bob Ingram, of Sisson & Associates insurance company, regarding the city’s insurance renewal rates. The city’s cyber security coverage premium is almost doubling, Ingram said, from $2,850 to $5,250, because of the number of claims the company has had on such policies. Overall the city’s premium is increasing 18.7%, from $261,059 to $309,878.

• Discussed potential uses for about $1 million in American Rescue Plan Act funding. Ideas mentioned included changing the street flow and parking behind the Union House and by the Pub, community broadband efforts and lift stations.

Council member Patrick Lumley said that at a conference he had recently attended, many cities had talked about using the federal COVID relief funds toward water quality initiatives, because water quality and water availability will be increasingly important issues in coming years.