The Minnesota and Wisconsin Departments of Transportation hosted a public meeting on the Blatnik Bridge Reconstruction Project. Some of the new developments are how the bridge will be designed and constructed over the next several years.

Twin Ports area residents gathered at the Superior Public Library Tuesday night, where both Wis-DOT and MnDOT laid out the preliminary plans for the bridge. Both agencies are looking at different delivery methods, design builds, and impacts for Duluth and Superior.

Pat Hustom, the Blatnik Bridge Reconstruction Project Director with MnDOT, says most of their jobs are design-bid-build. However, with fixing the half-century-old bridge, the reconstruction will be a design-build procedure.

“Really no collaboration between the project owner and the contractors. Owner designs it, contractor builds it, right? Design build is a little different in that we, the owners of the project, take it to about 30% design,” Hustom said. “We develop contract specifications, but let’s think of it as a box that the contractors and the designers that they’re partnered with need to stay within. That allows more performance base and innovation from the contractors. They’re the experts and they’re putting this together.”

Residents can expect to see field work throughout the end of October on Rice’s Point in Duluth. A portion of the work zone is located within the DNR boat launch parking lot and will impact available parking. Work on Connor’s Point in Superior will be August-October.

Some of the new developments for work on the bridge approach in Superior will be September-December. Traffic will be impacted by a single lane closure near the ramp from Hwy 53 to North 3rd Street and the ramp from North 3rd Street to I-535/Hwy 53.

“So as we kind of head through 2025, finish the preliminary engineering, getting our contract requirements ready, procurement and letting, that’s kind of the, we’ll call that the contract documents and the bidding, okay? So this is a generalized schedule and once we get a contractor on board, things are going to change.”

Earlier this year, the Blatnik reconstruction project received a $1.08 billion from a federal grant. Without those funds, it’s likely the project would’ve taken longer.

“It’s still a hardship for both Minnesota and Wisconsin financially, but had we not been able to fund this, we were predicting likely closure in 2030. So my point is, it’s going to be hard,” Hustom said. “Construction is hard, but we’ll get through it together.”

The closure of the Blatnik Bridge is expected in late 2027. Although the finished bridge reconstruction is expected to take five years, being completed in late 2032. For other new developments with the Blatnik Bridge project, you can read more here. Also for other stories with the reconstruction, you can read more here.