HILLCREST – With the recent departure of the village president and a trustee, Hillcrest was unable to assemble a quorum on Wednesday night, but they were able to discuss a few of the options available to repair the Hemstock Bridge.
Kaitlin Wright from Baxter & Woodman provided those residents in attendance the choices the village would have to make to reopen the bridge that has been closed since November of last year.
Brandon L. Buzzell, lead structural engineer and bridge department manager with Baxter and Woodman, said, “That should make the bridge safe for public use until we get through the entire approval process for federal funding. And then we are guessing that’s three or four years out from now when the bridge could be replaced. So this repair gets us beyond that timeframe.”
Option 1 is a temporary emergency repair to reopen Hemstock Bridge by summer 2026 at a cost of about $100,000 plus roughly $3,500 per month for signage, while Option 2 is a federally funded full replacement with an estimated village cost of $600,000 that would likely not be completed until 2028 or 2029. Option 3 is a locally funded full replacement using a design-build approach costing about $900,000, with completion expected in late 2027.