April 02, 2025
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Lucinda Avenue bridge reopening anticipated by September, DeKalb city engineer says

Plans for reconstructing Lucinda Avenue bridge in DeKalb were previously on pace for completion by June

By Megann Horstead
A portion of Lucinda Avenue is closed for bridge replacement in DeKalb on Thursday, July 6, 2023. The road near the bridge has been closed off since March 1, when crews began the process of replacing the bridge. DeKalb city officials said delays have pushed the completion date back from August to October 2023.

FILE – A portion of Lucinda Avenue, photographed in July 2023, is closed for bridge replacement in DeKalb. It is now expected to reopen by September. (Kelsey Rettke)

DeKALB – The timeline to reopen Lucinda Avenue bridge has been delayed again, and if all goes according to plan, vehicular and pedestrian traffic may resume by the first week of September, DeKalb City Engineer Zac Gill said.

The goal had been to complete the project – which consists of removing the 70-year-old Lucinda Avenue bridge and rebuilding it as a single-span structure, meaning it has supports on either side of the structures nearest to the river banks – by June.

“Our crew [is] fully in control of the site where we are very confident in [the new opening date],” Gill said.

Gill blamed the “significant” delay on the utility companies for not relocating their utilities on time.

“Before, when we were targeting June, that was back in October, November of last year,” Gill said. “We provided that update based on the schedule of the utility companies, which told us it would be by the end of the calendar year. We were expecting to have the site available to us in January when we could have started initiating the demolition. Some of those things are not weather dependent.”

Utilities had remained in conflict, prompting safety concerns for those working on the project site, through the spring, which Gill said led to city contractors not returning to the project site until April, after they were resolved.

Gill said he is confident the contractors will adhere to the new project timeline.

“They are progressing on or ahead of that September schedule,” Gill said. “We’re kind of in that window that we feel good about being open [in] September, and we’ll do everything we can to even accelerate that if the opportunity presents itself.”

Gill said he’d love for the bridge to be open before Northern Illinois University’s move-in weekend in the fall.

“They’re aware of it,” he said. “They understand the reality of it.”

The work is part of a combined single contract tying the reconstruction of both the Lucinda Avenue and First Street bridges. First Street Bridge reopened to vehicular traffic after numerous delays in December 2023.

Both bridges already were scheduled for replacement under state guideline and based upon biannual inspections, according to a news release last year from the city of DeKalb.

The replacements were expected to cost about $5.6 million total, largely funded by federal money, city documents show. About $4.5 million came from federal funds and $1.1 million from local state motor fuel tax revenue collected in recent years.

“There were significant cost savings there,” Gill said, in combining the two projects.

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