The push to gather the funds to rehabilitate the “Eiffel Tower of Springfield,” or the Jefferson Avenue Footbridge, has been a long one. It may finally come to fruition with the $8 million in state funds appropriated for the project.
While the City of Springfield has the money, it is hard to say when exactly the construction or rehabilitation on the bridge will begin.
“We are still in discussions with MoDOT to figure out how the funding will be administered,” Springfield Department Public Works Project Manager Nicholas Edelman said. “We can’t move forward with next steps until we know the requirements of the funds and when we may access them.”
Because they are still in the research phase, the City project team has not sought out bids from contractors yet. This means the full cost of the bridge’s repair process is technically still up in the air, but “Public Works does not anticipate needing additional funding,” Edelman said.
“When this project was previously bid in 2021, the received bids were just over $6 million,” Martin Gugel, Assistant Director of Public Works said. “While supply chain issues and contractor availability is still a concern, we have been able to make some changes to the plans and requirements that will reduce contractor risk and I am hopeful that the project will be able to proceed within this $8 million budget.”
The footbridge, while an important pathway to connect the Moon City Creative District and the historic Commercial Street, is “more than just an expensive infrastructure project,” according to Mary Collette, President of the Springfield Commercial Club. To Collette and business owners like her, the bridge is an icon of the north side of Springfield, an important aspect of the tourist economy and has a unique cantilevered architecture that attracts swaths of visitors from around the world.
“There are so many people currently, families and kids, who will come just to get up on the footbridge. They’ll come for senior pictures, they’ll come for their engagement shots, they’ll come for their wedding proposal, they’ll come just to hang out,” Collette said. “I still get phone calls several times a week from people who are coming to see the footbridge and simply don’t come because it’s not open.”
Before it was closed in 2016, pedestrians used the bridge to traverse the 13 sets of railroad tracks, to get to school, and even to train watch according to Collette. Without the footbridge, pedestrians on either side of the tracks need to take a detour of about six blocks.
If you want to support the upkeep of the footbridge, the Commercial Club created the Jefferson Avenue Footbridge Fund at the Community Foundation of the Ozarks where people are able to make tax-deductible donations for ongoing maintenance.
