Replacing the Rivershore Road bridge will require an additional $1 million after construction bids came in over the amount the city has in state funding for the project.
Public Utilities Director Dwan Bell said at last week’s City Council work session that an extra $1 million is needed to complete the project. The city is already using a $1.9 million grant from the N.C. Emergency Management Department to repair the bridge, which has been closed since March 2022. The city was awarded the Transportation Infrastructure Resiliency Grant later that year. The grant does not require a match from the city.
Addressing city councilors, Bell said the city already has spent about $611,000 of the grant toward the bridge replacement. The remaining amount — roughly $1.3 million — plus the extra $1 million is what is needed to complete the project.
According to Bell, the city received two bids to replace the bridge and each came in over the $1.9 million the city has for the project. The deadline for submitting bids was Feb. 20.
The project involves more than just the cost of replacing the bridge, Bell said.
“This is not just the bridge,” he said. “This is stormwater upgrades, some resurfacing of the road,” tree removal and relocating some utilities, he said. Divers even discovered an abandoned underwater utility line that had to be removed from under the bridge.
“It’s more than just replacing the little bridge,” Bell said. “It’s all the work that encompasses doing the bridge work.”
The new bridge will also be raised about two feet off the road’s surface to protect against flooding, similar to the new bridge on Providence Road, Bell said.
The director said his department would like to speak with officials at the N.C. Emergency Management Department about the possibility of acquiring a grant to cover the additional costs. The current grant may also need to be extended, as it expires in 2025, he said.
At the suggestion of 1st Ward Councilman Johnson Biggs, council agreed to take Bell’s recommendation under consideration.
The city originally planned for the bridge project to begin in April. In January, the city pushed back the timeline because a N.C. Department of Environmental Quality moratorium forbids water-related construction projects during fish spawning season from Feb. 1 to Nov. 1 of each year. According to Bell, the protected species include a type of bass and a type of herring.
In November, City Attorney William Morgan told City Council that all of the easements are now in place from five property owners near the bridge, which helps open the way for construction. Morgan said there were about a half-dozen roughly 100-year-old trees that had to be removed “from people’s yards” to make way for construction.
“We not only have to rebuild a bridge but we also have to move sewer lines as well,” the attorney said. “It was a big project, and I am happy to report that all of the easements have been assigned. They have been recorded in the (Pasquotank County) Register of Deeds Office.”
Morgan also told City Council that all of the prep work needed for the bridge project will be completed during the moratorium.
The closed Rivershore Road bridge is basically a concrete slab sitting atop two metal culverts. But flooding and erosion around the two-lane, 12-foot-long bridge that was built more than 30 years ago has taken its toll, forcing the city to close the bridge in spring 2022.
Council agreed to spend $282,000 with the city’s on-call engineering firm AECOM in September 2022 to plan and design the new bridge. The amount was well below the $403,000 city officials had budgeted for the design work.
Council also agreed to spend $60,000 to relocate water and sewer infrastructure at the project site.
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