Photo by Kyle Vertin
CHARLES PRITCHARD
Staff Writer
Those with a fear of the spine bridge coming down on them will be happy to know that they won’t have to worry anymore. By next semester, it will be gone.
“I really didn’t notice at first, but after taking a good look at the bridge you can see where there are cracks and pieces of concrete are falling off. It kind of makes you wonder what’s going to be done about it and just how safe it is,” Brian Johnson, a sophomore economics major, said.
It’s been no secret that the Academic Spine Bridge between McEwen Hall and the Williams Center has seen better days.With chunks of concrete falling off and a steel jack braced on the underside, it comes to no surprise when students stare past the wooden barrier blocking off a path underneath the spine.
“Working with the state construction fund, they recommended that we put in an additional column to support the bearing point. It’s not that it’s going to come crashing down, but should something happen and something slip, concrete would crack and fall off, and that’s what was the worry and why we put up another column. It’s a long explanation to say that ‘No, it’s not going to come down,’” Markus Kessler, director of Facilities Planning, said. “But, work does need to be done on the bridge because of the damage. You may not see anything on the outside but inside where the rebar is located.”
In President Virginia Horvath’s address in the Spring 2016 All Campus Meeting, it was revealed that the spine bridge was going to be removed in a two-step plan.
“This project will be completed in two phases,” Horvath said in the address. “The first phase will remove the existing spine bridge in the upcoming summer months. Design efforts for phase two will focus on a surface level pedestrian path providing safe access and incorporating I.M. Pei concepts to recreate the aesthetic Pei intent.”
Many wonder why Fredonia doesn’t opt to fix the bridge as it currently stands, instead of removing it altogether. Kessler explained how that could be more of a headache than it’s worth.
“The original design is much like a suspension bridge,” he said. “The concrete walls are what’s holding up the bridge, and the columns are there for support. You can’t take a piece out of the bridge, and repairing it is just not easy.
Photo by Kyle Vertin
“Replacing it as is would be a problem, as well,” Kessler continued. “The bridge isn’t up to current codes because it isn’t high enough. On top of that, the cost for a full replacement would be somewhere between three and four million dollars. And we’ve tried to keep it repaired and have tried seven times.”
Many may be sad to see the bridge go, but a former preservationist, like Kessler, knows when to call it quits.
“One of the things I did in my early work was preservation. We understand that there is a time where we have to give up the fight,” he said. “We know as much as we’d like to maintain something, we know there comes [a] time [to give up], whether because of something financially or because there’s just no way that we can save it.”
And the bridge is one of these times in which saving it is just not an option in the books.
With the bridge going and a new pathway being built, those that wish to stay to form will be pleased to know that the new design committee is intent on recreating the I.M. Pei style that makes the Fredonia campus special.
The design committee is being headed by Mike Houck, associate design coordinator of The State University Construction Fund and features people from all over the campus faculty, the Student Association and alumni.