Two bridges on Arlington Avenue are set to be replaced starting in May 2025

Summer 2025 will look a lot different than the last 100 years at Wingfield Park in Reno.

Granite Construction in May of next year will begin work to replace the two aging Arlington Avenue bridges.

The north bridge is more than a century old, and both bridges have been deemed structurally deficient and need to be replaced. The job requires Granite Construction to work inside the bed of the Truckee River for the duration of the 2025 summer.

Bryan Byrne, project manager with the Regional Transportation Commission told NNBW that the north bridge was constructed in 1921 and connected First Street to the large island in the Truckee River. The south bridge was constructed in 1938 and connected the island to Island Avenue.

“These are the original bridges,” Byrne said. “There have been minor modifications throughout history to the current day, but these bridges are now structurally deficient. They are still safe, but they are in need of reconstruction; they are beyond rehabilitation.”

The $32 million project will take until spring 2026 to complete. The new bridges will be very similar to what’s already there, although the larger north bridge will have one pier rather than the two that are currently anchored in the river bed, Byrne said.

“We have to preserve the hydraulic capacity of the river,” he said. “We can’t raise the bridges because it will impact the floodplain. If we were to raise the bridges, we would have more fill in the floodplain. We basically have to replace the bridge more or less in-kind.”

The final design for the bridges was submitted this spring, and both bridges will include ADA-compliant improvements, Byrne noted.

Brian Roll, area manager for Granite Construction, said the job will be completed under the Construction Manager at Risk process, which brings many benefits to the project owner. A hard bid job wouldn’t take into account the many variables that are likely to crop up during the course of the job, he said.

“The CMAR process allows us to work together as a team to figure out how to work through all those construction challenges,” Roll said. “We have a plan from Day 1 versus figuring it out when we are 20 feet below the river. Having all those plans in place is really a huge advantage.”

Byrne said that the RTC and Granite developed a “risk register” that takes into account the issues that could impact the project, such as high early summer runoff, and get action plans ready before the work ever begins.

“It allows us to be proactive instead of reactive,” he said.

Courtesy RTC

Two bridges on Arlington Avenue are set to be replaced starting in May 2025. The work will take until spring 2026 to complete.

Roll said the biggest risk is the unknown – there’s simply no way of telling what kind of winter will hit the region and the volume of water that will be flowing through the downtown river corridor during peak runoff season and into the summer months.

“You can prepare all you want, but Mother Nature is usually going to win,” Roll said. “That’s the biggest challenge – getting the work done while dealing with the river.”

When work commences, crews will block off the north channel of the Truckee River and divert all water to the south side of the island. Once the north area has been dewatered, demolition of the existing bridge will begin. The process will work in reverse for the south bridge – all water will be diverted to the north channel.

Roll said the footings for the new piers are about 20 feet below the riverbed, so once those holes are dug they will have to be shored up so that crews from Northern Nevada Rebar can work safely to tie rebar for the new cast-in-place pier columns.

The bridges themselves are designed using precast girders, which accelerates construction time, Roll said. They will be set atop the bridge abutments and provide the floor to pour a concrete deck.

Work in the riverbed won't begin until July 1 and must stop on October 31. The job was originally expected to take two years to complete – one year for each bridge. However, under the CMAR process, the construction schedule will run from May of 2025 to spring of 2026.

“We do understand the impact of shutting down this island,” Roll said. “That’s why we have worked together so hard to figure out how to get this done as efficiently as possible so we can get the island returned to the users of the park.”

The unique features of that part of the Truckee River provide a host of benefits to the construction team, Byrne noted.

“We do have two channels as it splits around Wingfield Park,” he said. “Other bridges along the Truckee River don’t have that setup, and it’s very fortunate; it’s going to help with construction.”

The island also provides easy access for men and heavy equipment, Roll added.

“Coming in off the island allows us to ramp right down into the river and work on the bridge,” he said.

Additional subcontractors on the Arlington Avenue bridge project include Titan Shoring and Malcolm Drilling. Jacobs Engineering of Reno is the design consultant.