When the city replaces the Kimball Street bridge, the span into and out of downtown Elgin will be completely closed for at least a year, officials told the Elgin City Council Wednesday night.
It’s the fastest and most efficient way to rebuild the structure, Public Services Director Mike Pubentz said. If the work was done in stages, construction would take two years, he said.
However, the city plans to tackle the $16.5 million Chicago Street bridge reconstruction first — likely in 2028 — before moving on to $21 million Kimball Street bridge project, which could be done in 2029 or 2030, he said.
Details on both pending jobs were presented by Pubentz and consultants from Alfred Benesch & Co. and TranSystems Corp.
The Kimball Street bridge, they said, will be replaced by a larger five-span, steel-plated girder structure that will add another westbound right-turn lane at Route 31 and a Fox River Bike Trail underpass. A new sidewalk on the north side and a median will be built and Kimball Street realigned as part of the project.
The second right-hand turn lane should help ease traffic backups and make the intersection safer, Pubentz said. The underpass — built either as a tunnel or a seawall — will improve how people use the Fox River Trail, eliminating the need for cyclists and pedestrians to get off the trail, cross at Kimball Street and North Grove Avenue, and then get back on the trail.
First phase engineering for both bridge projects is under way and should be finished by mid-2025, he said.
“Certainly, nothing has been set in stone,” Pubentz said. “(But) we’re reaching the point where we have to make some decisions. … At a minimum, we have to say what type of bridge (Kimball will be) and how big it will be.”
Other elements, such as what it will look like, can be decided later, he said.
“We can build a standard barebone bridge. It doesn’t look like much, but it’s very functional,” Pubentz said. “We can build a destination bridge … some sort of landmark people can identify Elgin with.”
Or it can be something that falls in between the two. Expense will definitely be a factor, he said.
“We need to come up with those numbers for you to better weigh the benefits and the cost,” he said.
Construction for both jobs will be mostly funded with federal and state money, with Elgin paying 20% of the total cost of each. The city plans to look for other funding sources to help reduce its expense.
There is no question both structures need to be replaced because while they are considered safe, they’ve also been deemed functionally obsolete by the Illinois Department of Transportation, meaning they don’t meet current bridge design standards.
The sufficiency rating for the two-way Kimball Street bridge, built in 1917, was 27.3 on a scale of 100, according to an IDOT inspection done in April 2022 inspection. By April 2024, the inspection rating was 2.
While that Kimball bridge is the larger project, the city will tackle the Chicago Street bridge first. City officials are hoping the Dundee Avenue/Center Street/Villa Street corridor project can be finished first before bridge work begins.
The Chicago Street bridge, a one-way westbound span built in 1939, is eligible for the National Register of Historic Bridges list, said Matt Baldwin, TranSystems Corp. senior project manager. As such, the city must preserve some of its features, he said.
Its sufficiency rate is 36.4 based on an April inspection so it’s eligible for full replacement, Baldwin said. Previously, it had been rated 60.
Gloria Casas is a freelance reporter for The Courier-News.
