Geneva's Island Park bridge replacement hits a snag
Geneva park commissioners are unhappy to learn the Geneva Historic Preservation Commission doesn't like their plan for replacing the north bridge at Island Park.
And they asked why the HPC seems to be questioning their judgment: Why would the park district go through the trouble and expense of testing the current bridge and making plans to spend $1 million on a new one, if it weren't necessary?
But the city's historic preservation planner says the questioning is standard procedure.
Geneva Park District parks and properties superintendent Larry Gabriel told the park board this week about concerns raised by the HPC when he presented the plans in September. The park district wants to replace the 76-year-old all-concrete bridge with a wider concrete bridge that would have steel rail sidewalls and two observation bump-outs.
"What we were met with was a regression of sorts," Gabriel said. "The commission felt we did not provide enough proof that the bridge needs to be torn down."
The railing idea was first proposed by HPC Chairman Scott Roy at a May meeting Gabriel attended to obtain advice about bridge replacement.
The park board liked it because instead of lifting children up to look over the walls of the bridge, they could see through the railings. They also think the railings would be less expensive than concrete walls.
HPC members now want the concrete walls back. They also wonder if it couldn't be saved by building a supportive structure underneath the current deck.
"What's their authority?" asked parks Commissioner Todd Karas.
The HPC is ruling on the plan because the bridge is in the historic district. A denial can be appealed to the city council.
The requests for documentation aren't unusual, said Karla Kaulfuss, the city's historic preservation planner.
"That is standard procedure for a Historical Preservation Commission review," she said. "The commission likes to make an educated decision.
"Especially since it is such a significant resource as this."
The commission follows standards set by the federal Secretary of the Interior, which are summed up as "repair first, replace in kind," she said.
Parks Commissioner Susan VanderVeen questioned whether public safety shouldn't supersede aesthetic concerns. The park district would like to make the bridge wider and add the bump-outs so pedestrian and bicyclists aren't so close to each other. If it had bump-outs, pedestrians could stay on the bridge while park district vehicles drove over the bridge, too.
The bridge deck is crumbling due to water getting into the concrete, then freezing and expanding. Newer construction methods would place air in the concrete to give water places to go and avoid the freeze-expand-thaw cycle destruction. Three of its four piers are in good shape and could be salvaged, the district says, but one is cracked.
The park district's next move is to gather reports from the engineers who took core samples of the bridge's deck, piers and abutments in August, along with paperwork of the last time it tried to get a contractor to bid on repairing the bridge (no one wanted the job), and submit that to the HPC.
"I can respect them for not throwing caution to the wind," Gabriel said.