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Home | Local + Metro | East Metro | The I-35W bridge collapse

Key pieces of I-35W bridge come back home

Jeffrey Thompson, Star Tribune

Officials examine a section of the I-35W bridge wreckage at the NTSB's secured site downstream of the collapse in Minneapolis in October 2007.

After being analyzed in Washington, D.C., for the collapse investigation, remnants will get their own building, for about $500,000.

By JIM FOTI, Star Tribune

Last update: February 6, 2009 - 11:13 PM

Pieces of the old Interstate 35W bridge that were shipped to Washington, D.C., for the collapse investigation are heading back to Minnesota, and the state is spending an estimated $500,000 to build a storage facility for them.

Work has yet to begin on the 50-by-100-foot building, which will rise on Minnesota Department of Transportation land in Oakdale near Hwy. 5 and Interstate 694.

Because of lawsuits related to the collapse, the state has an obligation to keep the pieces in reasonable condition, said Kevin Gutknecht, MnDOT's communications director. The prefabricated building should be done within three months, he said.

The site is next to the state's bridge office and is easily reached from the rest of the metro area, he said, adding that the department decided against renting space because "we're not certain how long we may need to keep this material available." MnDOT will have no trouble finding another use for the building once the time comes, he said, though he didn't have specifics.

After the collapse on Aug. 1, 2007, the National Transportation Safety Board brought many components of the bridge to Washington, where it was eventually determined that some of the steel gusset plates holding the bridge's beams together were half the size they should have been. Thirteen people were killed and more than 100 were injured when the 40-year-old bridge fell.

Other segments of the bridge's twisted green steel are still sitting on a swath of Minneapolis parkland called Bohemian Flats, just downstream from the collapse site. Gutknecht says that, by summer, MnDOT hopes to have moved those pieces to a site in Afton, "where essentially the rest of the steel from the bridge has been stored."

The replacement bridge opened to traffic on Sept. 18.

Jim Foti • 612-673-4491

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