“It was more than the preferred design, but it was reasonably within the budget,” Finke said Thursday.
This summer, the city was considering an approximately $4.5 million replacement design for the aging Helena bridge, which links Riverside Drive with Island Metropark just below the confluence of the Miami and Stillwater rivers.
But members of the Greater Dayton Rowing Association and the Canoe Club were concerned that the then-preferred three-span design would create a bottleneck, not leaving enough room for boaters to safely maneuver.
To raise the bridge high enough to accommodate sailing masts on canoes would have cost some $9 million to $14 million, Finke said. “Those (designs) were just too expensive.”
The newly chosen design will cost the city about $5 million, Finke said, an amount he said was “more than we anticipated spending, but we can make it work.”
“That was really to respond to the rowers and their concerns,” he added.
Doug Barker, boathouse manager and a trustee of the Greater Dayton Rowing Association, welcomed the prospect of a two-span or two-arch design. Community leaders and downtown advocates have tried to stress the community’s rivers as local strengths for years.
“That’s fantastic news,” Barker said. “We’re incredibly happy. I’m pleasantly surprised that the public feedback seems to have worked very effectively.”
In a Nov. 6 letter to citizens who attended an Aug. 12 open house to discuss bridge design alternatives, Finke wrote that the city has a $5.4 million budget for the Helena bridge replacement, which includes design, construction and engineering costs.
A message seeking comment was left with Donna Martin, commodore of the Dayton Canoe Club.
Bids for construction work on the bridge could go out in the summer of 2016, with work starting in the fall that year and completion expected in the fall of 2017.
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