From bridge to rubble … to reef? Maybe, if financing can be found.
The town of Lantana is trying to persuade county officials to spend an additional $300,000 and use the crumbled parts of the soon-to-be demolished Ocean Avenue Bridge as an artificial reef.
Lantana doesn’t have the cash, but Town Manager Michael Bornstein wants Palm Beach County to take on the extra expense.
“We are going to encourage the County Commission to keep the old bridge in Lantana,” Bornstein said, to encourage a thriving fishing habitat.
The extra cost may be possible since bids for the bridge came in lower than expected July 12 — the highest just above $29 million, below the previously estimated $32 million cost. The contract is on schedule to be awarded Sept. 13.
The cost of the two-year project to replace the 61-year-old bridge includes a $500,000 fishing pier that will run beneath the west end of the bridge and protrude into the waterway.
Preliminary work is scheduled to begin Dec. 1, but the bridge will not be closed for demolition until mid-March. The new bridge, 11 feet higher than the current structure, is scheduled to open in October 2013.
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