St. Paul’s Kellogg Boulevard bridge construction begins later this summer
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St. Paul will close the Kellogg Boulevard and Third Street bridge for a three-year, $70 million construction project to replace the bridge and accommodate more traffic, including transit, walking and biking.
The closure will be from Broadway Street to Mounds Boulevard. The exact date isn’t yet set, but project manager Brent Christensen said the construction could begin as early as mid-July.
The funding will come from a number of sources, including a federal grant, state bonding and transportation legislation, municipal state aid and the city’s local capital investment program.
“This project is 10 years in the making, it did take time and a lot of effort and assistance from our state Legislature to fund the project,” Christensen said.
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The project won’t be utilizing funds from the local sales tax that was passed last November.
During the project, vehicles will be diverted north to East Seventh Street, while pedestrian and bike traffic will be directed south on Mounds Boulevard to Commercial Street and Fourth Street.
The city is no longer considering Wall Street as a potential detour route due to concerns of traffic congestion.
The half-mile concrete bridge was built by the Minnesota Department of Transportation in 1980 and turned over to the city in 1983. It runs roughly parallel to the Mississippi River, over the Bruce Vento Nature Sanctuary, connecting downtown St. Paul to Mounds Boulevard.
The bridge replacement stems from a 2014 structural analysis of the bridge that found traffic couldn’t be supported on the outer portions of the bridge deck. That means the current bridge can’t meet potential demands of future development, including the Gold Line rapid bus transit between Union Depot downtown and Woodbury.
Since the structural analysis, the bridge has been restricted to three traffic lanes and one six-foot wide sidewalk.
A virtual meeting with project staff that is open to the public is set for 5:30 p.m. on June 26. The meeting will also have access available via phone (612-315-7905) or through the internet via Microsoft Teams. Find more information about the meeting at the St. Paul project website.