Park Board wants 35W bridge debris removed

If pieces remain, board asks MnDOT to cover loss of revenue from riverfront Bohemian Flats Park.

By JIM FOTI, Star Tribune

Last update: November 20, 2009 - 10:33 PM

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Minnesota bridges rated: An interactive map of bridges that are "structurally deficient," "functionally obsolete" or have gusset plates like those on the I-35W bridge.

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Minneapolis park officials have gone to court to get their park back.

In a complaint filed Friday in Hennepin County District Court, the city's Park and Recreation Board has demanded that the state immediately remove the remnants of the old Interstate 35W bridge from Bohemian Flats Park, where the pieces have been stored since shortly after the bridge collapsed in August 2007.

The complaint says that if that can't happen, the board seeks "in excess of $50,000" for the loss of use of the park. The board says it's missing out on $60,000 a year in parking revenue and in payments from an excursion boat company that formerly used a dock at the park, which is on the Mississippi River.

The rusting green steel parts belong to the Minnesota Department of Transportation, which declined to comment Friday but has said it wants to move them to one of its other sites. To get the pieces on trucks, however, it would have to cut some of them, an action that may alter evidence in the numerous lawsuits stemming from the deadly collapse. The courts have declined to grant MnDOT a protective order.

Trials in the bridge suits aren't expected to begin before March 2011, raising Park Board fears that the remnants will be fenced off on the riverfront for years.

The complaint said that MnDOT "has declined to pay reasonable rent" and that park commissioners turned down MnDOT's latest permit extension request in June.

Last month, the National Transportation Safety Board returned key bridge parts that it examined during the investigation it concluded a year ago. Those pieces, including the steel gusset plates that were deemed a likely cause of the collapse, were shipped from the Washington, D.C., area and are being housed in a new building on MnDOT property in Oakdale, along with some bearings that were formerly stored on the riverfront.

Jim Foti • 612-673-4491

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