Construction Starts On Wisconsin Side Of St. Croix Bridge
HUDSON, Wis. (WCCO) -- In just over a year and a half, Minnesota and Wisconsin will be connected by a brand new $360 million bridge. The whole project, including new roads, will cost $600 million.
Monday, crews officially kicked off construction on the Wisconsin side. About 100 workers are braving the winter on 10-hour shifts day and night to finish the bridge by the fall of 2016.
The bridge, named St. Croix Crossing, will replace the lift bridge in downtown Stillwater.
It will connect Oak Park Heights, Minn., and St. Joseph, Wis.
Eleven stories up, atop the pier work zone, it looks picturesque but it feels brutal. Tom Villar is a MnDOT project supervisor and spends time atop the structure.
"It's a lot of layers and trial and error I guess. You come out here a few times and you get cold and you realize you didn't do it," Villar said.
Villar helps manage the monstrous project. He showed us how his crews work in the high winds nd take refuge inside the heated top of the pier. He said the hard part is coming back out into the wind.
But the weather is something the project manager Michael Beer accounted for. He said the 30-degree days have helped, but the extra cold ones have slowed things down.
"For the concrete that needs to cure, we need to maintain temperatures above freezing. We don't want the product to freeze out before it's procured out and obtained its strength," Beer said.
They've made some Minnesota modifications. Blankets help protect things as they dry. A tug boat stirs the water so they can take boats from pier to shore, a job that was even tougher last year.
"We've got less ice and I think everybody in Minnesota is aware this winter is less severe than last winter," Villar said.
Top segments will be laid this summer. And come fall 2016, this crisp sky-high zone will be primed for a top-down drive.
"This hopefully is going to be one of those bridges that somebody who sells cars can come take films of cars going across it," Villar said.
The St. Croix Crossing will be only the second in the U.S. with its five-point, low-arch design, the other one is in Connecticut.