BREWER, Maine — The proposed path for an extension of the city’s riverwalk trail would take people through the base of the Joshua Chamberlain Bridge, which was built in 1954 as a toll bridge.
“It’s hollow under the [former] tollbooth” on the Brewer side, Mayor Kevin O’Connell said Monday of the middle bridge over the Penobscot River, which took tolls until 1971.
The Maine Department of Transportation is hosting a 6 p.m. meeting Tuesday at Brewer City Hall to present the plans for extending the walking trail from where it ends at Wilson Street to just south of the Penobscot Bridge.
If all goes as planned, the trail will be finished in early 2018, according to Nicole Gogan, Brewer’s deputy director of economic development.
Maine DOT hired Kleinfelder, an engineering consulting firm based out of Augusta, to design the approximately $1.15 million trail. Jim Wentworth, senior project manager, presented three designs at a July meeting to 26 residents, who resoundingly supported the tunnel plan, Gogan said.
“It was the one that had the least impact on the property owners … and it also adds to the cool factor,” she said.
Kleinfelder engineers sat down with Maine DOT project manager Catherine Rand and bridge engineers after the July meeting and “we actually have fleshed out that option and it is feasible,” Wentworth said Monday.
“There is an actual bridge span there, so you can go up inside there,” he said.
The plan calls for cutting a couple of holes in the side walls of the base of the bridge, removing the dirt underneath the approximately 60-foot-wide span, and adding walls, lighting and security cameras, Wentworth said.
The best part is that it’s the easiest way to connect the existing trail with the new trail, which will range from 8 to 12 feet wide and stretch north for approximately 1,700 feet, he said. The estimated cost of the trail construction is $885,000, with an additional $265,000 set aside for engineering and the right of ways, which Brewer is responsible for acquiring.
The current 1,900-foot waterfront trail was built in July 2013 and connects the former public works lot on Hardy Street, now home to Mason’s Brewing Co., to Wilson Street and has bench seating, light poles and a children’s garden, located behind Dead River Co., that is planted with native plants.
The original concept plans for the riverside walking trail had it stretching from the Cianbro Manufacturing Facility in South Brewer to Indian Trail Park, located north of the Penobscot Bridge. O’Connell said while nothing is off the table, the city is concentrating its efforts on phase two at this point in time.
The first phase of the trail cost approximately $200,000 for trail construction and shoreline stabilization and was funded with part of a 2005 federal transportation earmark of $1.8 million. The city’s public works department provided the labor, which counted as Brewer’s in-kind matching contribution to receive the federal funds. Former U.S. Rep. Mike Michaud spearheaded the effort to obtain the federal earmark, which involved a special request outside the normal funding process. The funding is open-ended and doesn’t list specific projects, but must be used for transportation improvements associated with the city’s waterfront.
There is about $1.3 million remaining in the account, so the Maine DOT plans also include adding new curbing and brickwork on Center Street if there is money left over in the earmark, Wentworth said.
“And it’s cool,” Wentworth said. “We’re full steam ahead at this point. There is nothing there from a design perspective to stop us.”
The city has already added extra parking near the end of Penobscot Street, which is also where the new portion of the trail would end.
“It’s going to mirror the first phase pretty closely,” Gogan said of the planned riverside path. “It will have the same type of feel, benches and lighting. One of the coolest parts is that it’s going to tie the downtown area to the river.”