Mega-beauty?
The Cortez Bridge Aesthetics Committee met for a sixth time April 1. The 11-member group of local resident-volunteers is working with the Florida Department of Transportation to select ornamental features for the 65-foot-clearance fixed-span bridge the department has scheduled for construction in 2026-27.
Five committee members attended the virtual meeting, including Jeff Vey and Connie Morrow. Vey lives at Bridgeport, a Bradenton Beach condominium complex that will border the proposed bridge. Morrow owns condos in Bradenton Beach and Cortez.
The bridge spans the Intracoastal Waterway between Bradenton Beach and Cortez.
DOT consultant Adrian Moon led the meeting, accompanied by DOT design project manager Roxann Lake and consultant Doug Hershey.
Though design meetings are open to the public, no one else attended.
The committee made the following progress:
- Chose a “wave” infill pattern for the bridge’s pedestrian railings;
- Decided lighting beneath the bridge will be limited to the outside face of each pier;
- Narrowed choices for retaining wall motifs.
The committee began meeting in August 2020 and has chosen the shape of the bridge’s piers, as well as made the decision to include soft, changeable lighting beneath the structure.
The group also settled on the construction of four bridge overlooks, two on each side of the main channel in the ICW.
The megabridge, slated to replace the 17-foot-clearance drawbridge, is facing a challenge in federal court from a group that maintains it will destroy the character of Cortez.
The coalition, which includes the city of Bradenton Beach, former Manatee County Commissioners Joe McClash and Jane von Hahmann and two Cortez residents, Linda Molto and Joe Kane, advocates for the construction of a 35-foot-clearance drawbridge.
A high bridge would include walls approximately 20 feet tall on the mainland on each side. On the Cortez landing side, walls would slope from a 20-foot peak near the water to ground level near 125th Street West, a distance of about 528 feet.
Moon and Hershey told The Islander a new bridge of any height will necessitate the construction of high walls on the Bradenton Beach side due to the landing length.
However, since the navigable channel is off-center on the bridge span, a 35-foot-clearance bridge would not require high walls on the Cortez side, they said.
Moon told committee members that, no matter what type of bridge gets built, no design decisions would be wasted.
“I know there’s conversations going on elsewhere about bridge height. None of your work is throwaway. All the stuff that we’ve done, the decisions you’ve made, the decisions you will be making, can be applied to any structure height,” he said.
Lake said the DOT is working to get the minutes and video recordings of the committee meetings on the project’s website, cortezbridge.com. She estimates that the process will take two weeks.
The committee will meet two or three more times before the DOT moves forward with its Phase II design plans that will incorporate the group’s aesthetic choices, Lake said.
The next meeting is tentatively scheduled for 10:30 a.m. Thursday, April 22. People interested in attending can email Lake at roxann.lake@dot.state.fl.us.
The April 1 committee meeting recording can be viewed at https://transcripts.gotomeeting.com/#/s/e6039cd6ef45e91d7063edfb9197801f296c8c9ed1fcb164ec471c5db7f15c77.