New Design Chosen for the Historic Harmar Bridge
After much thought, careful consideration, several open community discussions, and a public survey yielding over 600 responses, the Historic Harmar Bridge Company in partnership with American Structurepoint and the Buckeye Hills Regional Council, is very proud to announce the future of the Historic Harmar Bridge.
Upon learning from a detailed inspection completed in 2022 that the metal truss structures our community has come to know and love are entirely unsalvageable, we had to begin having difficult conversations about replacing the spans in order to maintain our primary goal of safe pedestrian access between downtown Marietta and the Historic Harmar Village. In our research and planning, we learned that a new, prefabricated replacement structure would not be an exact replica of the current Historic Harmar Bridge and the differences would be undeniable. The cost to attempt to salvage the current structure is not feasible and would be more than double the cost of any updated replacement option we explored.
As the bridge has drastically changed styles three times in its history to accommodate specific uses of each respective era, we believe that it is time again to repurpose the bridge to best accommodate its life as a pedestrian only artery, connecting the Harmar Village to the greater Marietta downtown district. To that point, we have decided to move forward with an open concept style that will best facilitate a multi-use walking and biking path while also still maintaining the most historic and iconic aspect of the bridge, the turn span.
There is still much planning, preparation and fundraising to be done and we will be asking the community again for more feedback on specific design elements when the time comes. As we recognize the long history of the bridge, we look towards its future and the future of our community. For now, we hope you will celebrate this monumental step forward in the reopening of the Historic Harmar Bridge and we hope you will join us on July 28-30 in the heart of Harmar Village for our annual Harmar Days Festival.
