WORK CONTINUES — Crews continue constructing the piers and supporting structures across the Ohio River between Wellsburg and Brilliant for the new Wellsburg Bridge. (Photo by Scott McCloskey)

WELLSBURG — While it is still too early in the project to pinpoint a completion date, the Wellsburg Bridge continues to take shape.

More than two years after the groundbreaking ceremony for the bridge, crews with the Flatiron Corp. of Broomfield, Colo., continue constructing the piers and supporting structures across the Ohio River between Wellsburg and Brilliant.

The span, which will eventually extend 1,600 feet across the Ohio River, will include an 830-foot tied-arch span, which is being constructed along the shore a short distance upriver from the piers near Wellsburg.

While the tied-arch span was initially set to be transported downriver on barges and hoisted into place onto the bridge piers this fall, that date has been pushed back to sometime early next year, possibly in March or April, according to West Virginia Division of Highways District 6 Engineer Tony Clark.

Clark said it is still too early in the project to know whether the overall projected completion date for the bridge will be pushed back. Currently, the completion date for the structure is set for late 2021.

Awarded in 2016, the $131 million Wellsburg Bridge is Flatiron’s first project in the state and West Virginia’s first alternative delivery project. According to former West Virginia DOH District Construction Engineer Joe Juszczak, Flatiron plans to eventually transport the enormous tied-arched span down river and lower it onto the piers from 80 feet in the air using jacks positioned on barges.

Juszczak said when they do move the tied-arch into place, river traffic will be shut down for a 72-hour period on that section of the river. With an estimated weight of 4,000 tons, the tied-arch span is believed to be the heaviest structure to be lifted in such a way in the United States.

In the meantime, construction crews continue performing hillside retaining work, as they shore up the embankment where the bridge will eventually intersect with state Route 2. The speed limit has been lowered to 40 mph in the construction zone between Wellsburg and Beech Bottom where steel piling is being set in place below the roadway.

When finished, the bridge will extend across the river from Route 2 about a mile south of Wellsburg to the intersection of Third and Cleaver streets near state Route 7 in Brilliant.

West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice was on hand with Brooke County officials when ground was broken for the span in July 2018. Justice said the bridge is a collaboration of the West Virginia and Ohio departments of transportation, and both have drawn on federal highway money to finance it. The states have signed an agreement in which West Virginia, which owns the river, will pay 65 percent of the span’s cost. Ohio will pay the remaining 35 percent.

(McCloskey can be contacted at smccloskey@theintelligencner.net)