$5.2M project to close downtown Scranton artery

BY DAVID SINGLETON
STAFF WRITER

Getting downtown from West Scranton is about to get a little more difficult.

The state Department of Transportation will close the Lackawanna Avenue Bridge to vehicular and pedestrian traffic July 7, a prelude to construction of a new $5.2 million bridge that has been in the works for a decade and talked about for much, much longer.

The construction means the more than 10,200 cars, trucks and buses that use the bridge on a daily basis — not to mention an untold number of pedestrians — will have to find another way to and from West Side for up to 18 months. The project has an anticipated completion date of December 2009.

The payoff for the inconvenience, said Mayor Chris Doherty, will be an infrastructure investment that will help drive development on the west end of Lackawanna Avenue.

“This project needs to be done and, in the end, you’ll have a safer bridge and a more beautiful bridge,” he said.

PennDOT is administering the project for the city. A Mechanicsburg company, Deblin Inc., was awarded the construction contract earlier this month.

PennDOT’s recommended detour will divert traffic onto Seventh Avenue, Linden Street and Franklin Avenue.

The existing but seriously deteriorating concrete bridge, which was built in the 1930s but retains elements from an earlier structure dating to the 1890s, will be replaced with a 251-foot, three-span continuous composite steel plate girder bridge.

Frank Huttel, of Buchart Horn Inc., the design consulting firm, said city officials wanted as much as possible to preserve the integrity of the landmark.

The original concrete arches will be preserved and integrated into the new bridge as ornamental features, he said. In addition, he said, the bridge’s distinctive towers will be replicated, complete with period lighting, and the new concrete throughout the structure will be stained “to look like the old concrete.”

“When you’re looking from a distance, it will look like the same bridge,” Mr. Huttel said.

The long-awaited bridge work is expected to be a catalyst for two other major construction projects in the area.

Businessman Jerry Donahue, who heads the partnership that owns the Central New Jersey depot at the western end of the bridge, said the $4.5 million renovation of the 117-year-old freight station will begin in earnest once he has a bridge construction timeline from Deblin.

Because the bridge contractor requires access to Central New Jersey property, the bridge and depot projects will be coordinated to let the work on both move forward at the same time, he said.

“We’re excited to get going,” said Mr. Donahue, who is converting the old rail freight station into a retail and restaurant complex.

Near the eastern end of the bridge, the County of Lackawanna Transit System wants to start construction by the end of summer on the $11.5 million Scranton Intermodal Center.

The facility, which will serve as a downtown hub for COLTS, commercial buses, taxis and — possibly in the future — passenger rail service to New York, will be built on the south side of Lackawanna Avenue on the site now occupied by the State Office Building parking lot. Construction is expected to take about a year.

COLTS development director Kurt Kempter said there is no question the three projects will cause some disruption at that end of the downtown. At the same time, he said, it’s fortunate they’ll take place simultaneously.

“What we are trying to do is get all of this done together as much as we can so it’s only a disruption once,” he said.