Wabasha Street Bridge
St. Paul, Minnesota
Design Engineer: Schlaich, Bergermann & Partner
1992-1994

As the major vehicular and pedestrian crossing over the Mississippi River in downtown St. Paul, the Wabasha Street Bridge’s significance for the city rests not only with its central location, but also its historic importance as the first crossing of the river.
The initial program for this project was to reactivate the long ignored river front; to visually emphasize and encourage pedestrian traffic across the river and down to a mid-river island; and to develop a conceptual master plan for a new park system along the river.  The design concept for the bridge places primary emphasis on the mid-river island, establishing a superstructure rising from the island to support the road deck, and clearly separating the pedestrian experience from vehicular traffic.
These parameters led to the development of a unique twin mast cable-stay structure, alluding to the actual erosion of the bluffs of the vast river valley.  This structure, with a cable supported torsion box below deck, accommodates a bend in the roadway which reinforces the alignment of Wabasha Street, and provides a sense of transition and hierarchy within the experience of crossing.
James Carpenter, Luke Lowings, Richard Kress and the team at JCDA won a competition to design the bridge and developed the project to design development level.

The project received a citation in the 1993 Progressive Architecture Design Awards.