Newark officials look ahead to Cherry Valley Road bridge reopening

Newark officials are looking ahead to the hopeful reopening of the Cherry Valley Road Bridge in the coming year, after its sudden closure in October.

On Oct. 5, the deteriorating Showman Arch Bridge on Cherry Valley Road was closed after Federal Highway Administration engineers inspected the structure. While the bridge has been deteriorating for years, recent inspections prompted the immediate closure.

According to Newark Engineer Brian Morehead, the next thing people will begin to see at the site is tree removal, foundation work, steel pile driving and concrete work.

"We're working on the temporary bridge solution. The steel bridge is being fabricated right now and we're working with our design team to get a foundation design done so we can get to construction here in the next month or so," Morehead said.

Morehead told The Advocate earlier this year the closing wasn't due to visible changes in the bridge, but a different evaluation of its condition by federal officials. The cracks in the bridge have been visible underneath for decades, he added.

“We’ve been constantly monitoring the old bridge,” Morehead said. “It is all one engineer’s judgement versus another engineer’s judgement. The city and ODOT have kind of been in lock-step of how we’ve been monitoring the thing, but when FHWA engineers came in, they felt otherwise.

"The cracks were here 33 years ago when I started looking at the bridge. Along the cracks, some of the edges of the stones have deteriorated and some pieces have fallen out.”

Earlier this year, Newark City Council approved resolutions to provide American Rescue Plan funds and waive bids for an emergency project at a special meeting in October. The city hopes the resolutions will help expedite the process to create a $1.5 million temporary fix, which would allow traffic to flow on the bridge until the completion of a new road and bridge in 2025.

The 160-foot temporary bridge will be suspended three or four feet above the current bridge and rest on foundations on each end, which would allow travel over the bridge to resume without further damaging the 189-year-old structure that was built to carry water, not vehicles.

The plans are for U.S. Bridge, of Cambridge, to construct the bridge and transport it here in sections in January. At the same time, another contractor will install foundations and pilings at each end for the temporary bridge. U.S. Bridge will then complete the installation on site, connecting the temporary bridge to the foundations.

Mayor Jeff Hall told city council two-way traffic will likely be able to move at 25 to 35 miles per hour on the temporary bridge without load limits.

A planned new road will connect Thornwood Crossing to Thornwood Drive, with a new three-span, steel girder bridge over Raccoon Creek and the bike path, and a new roundabout at an intersection of Reddington Road, Thornwood Drive and a relocated River Road.

The new road will bypass Cherry Valley Road and the Showman Arch Bridge. When the new road opens in 2025, the temporary bridge will be dismantled and could be used elsewhere. The Showman Arch Bridge will remain in place for pedestrian use.

The mayor said little can be done to change the timeline for the $17 million Thornwood Crossing road project.

“That project is doing very well," Hall said. "It’s very hard to rush it from where it is now. Usually, the rushing is on the front end, with some of the planning, some of the financing.”

He said the bids are due in March for the permanent bridge and it will take at least two years for construction.