Region braces for bridge
St. Croix Crossing to connect western part of state to Minnesota
ST. JOSEPH - Jeff Thiel recalled his old commute from Wisconsin to Minnesota across the Stillwater Lift Bridge.
Some days, the ride was clear. Other days, especially during afternoon rush hour in the heat of summer, Thiel would wait up to 30 minutes in bumper-to-bumper traffic on the Minnesota side as pleasure crafts cruised by along the St. Croix River.
But all that will change this week with the opening of the St. Croix Crossing, which links St. Joseph to Oak Park Heights, Minn. The bridge is scheduled to open within 24 hours of Wednesday morning’s dedication ceremony.
“It’s the best thing to happen in the area in a long time,” Thiel said. “The lift bridge in Stillwater is a bad accident waiting to happen.”
The push to span the St. Croix with a new bridge was decades in the making as debate flared over what to do with a two-lane Stillwater bridge, a relic from another era, opened in 1931 and increasingly unsuit-
ed for the demands of modern traffic.
It took an act of Congress in 2012 to get the necessary approvals for a new bridge on the St. Croix, which is protected by the federal Wild and Scenic Rivers Act. The Stillwater bridge will become part of a 4.7-mile bicycle and pedestrian trail.
The $646 million project, which includes approach roads, features a unique hybrid bridge design that is only the second of its kind in the United States.
Tim Mason, project manager for the Wisconsin Department of Transportation, said the most difficult part of the construction was “the complexity of the bridge itself.”
“The design is a cross between a box girder bridge that we see quite frequently and a cablestayed bridge,” he said. “There was a stakeholder group during the planning phase that decided upon this design because they wanted to minimize the number of piers in the water but yet they didn’t want it to be overpowering. They didn’t want the pier towers to be higher than the Wisconsin bluff tree line.”
Beyond speeding traffic across a four-lane span, the bridge will likely spur development in a portion of Western Wisconsin that is now more easily within reach of Minneapolis-St. Paul.
“It has brought us, if you will, closer to the Twin Cities, but it has also strengthened the bond with communities across the river,” said Bill Rubin of the St. Croix Economic Development Corp.
Spur for development
Three Wisconsin communities could be affected by the bridge.
The bridge enters the Wisconsin side at St. Joseph, with its rolling farmland dotted by elegant executive homes that hug the river bluff.
“Obviously, there is going to be some change, but it’s probably not as drastic as some people would think,” said Thomas Spaniol, St. Joseph town chairman.
“Our new housing construction went up 60% this year ... from 12 to 19,” Spaniol said. “But if we look before the 2007 housing crash, we were building 40 to 50 houses a year. We aren’t going to see that kind of boom again. And many of the residents like it the way it is, and that’s rural landscapes and large, three-acre minimum lot sizes for residential.”
David Robson, a commercial developer whose home is perched 300 feet from the bridge, indicated growth is inevitable in the wake of the bridge opening.
“It’s going to change things substantially, especially for the area I live in,” he said. “People now perceive it’s very hard to get to.”
There may be bigger plans for Somerset and New Richmond. Both are connected to water and sewer systems, making development more likely.
“What the bridge has done is create a pocket of excitement,” said Becka Whitlock, executive director of the Somerset Area Chamber of Commerce. “A lot of people may be overstating it, expecting an explosion of business or families. What we’re seeing is steady growth.”
Felicia Germain, Somerset’s village clerk, deputy treasurer and economic development director, said over the last year and a half she has fielded calls from residential and commercial developers in anticipation of the bridge opening.
“People are looking to come this way,” she said.
The community that may be best poised for the development is New Richmond, a regional center that has a technical college, airport and hospital.
“The bridge has been on the radar for a long time,” said Mike Darrow, New Richmond’s city administrator.
Darrow admits the city is at a crossroads.
“There are things we don’t want to change, our sense of place and pride,” Darrow said.
But change is on the way. They’ve built a bridge and development is sure to follow.