CLEVELAND, Ohio - It's time to sound off about the design of what could become a new civic symbol for the city – a large, dramatic and visually prominent pedestrian bridge that will sweep across the lakefront railroads and Shoreway from downtown to North Coast Harbor.

Cuyahoga County's Department of Public Works and Cleveland's Group Plan Commission are seeking public reaction starting Thursday on three concepts for the $25 million span.

The designs, released exclusively to The Plain Dealer Thursday morning, will be posted on the Group Plan Commission's website at noon. The nonprofit commission will begin collecting comments on the designs immediately, however, on its website.

In addition, the designs will be the focus of a free public meeting from 6 to 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 13, in the County Council chambers on the fourth floor of the county administration building, 2079 East Ninth St., Cleveland.

A rendering depicts the cable-stayed design option for the 900-foot-long pedestrian bridge on Cleveland's lakefront devised by Boston architect Miguel Rosales and Parsons Brinckerhoff.

The bridge will extend 900 feet from the city's downtown Mall and reach over the lakefront railroad lines and the Shoreway to attractions at North Coast Harbor including the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum.

The county, which is managing the project, wants to choose a design concept quickly - possibly later this month - to help expedite completion of the bridge in time for the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland.

"We are confident and we feel we can get it done," said Jeremy Paris, executive director of the Group Plan Commission, originally formed by Mayor Frank Jackson in 2010 to spearhead improvements to downtown public spaces. "If we continue to hit our marks, we feel this could be very exciting."

The design concepts include an S-shaped suspension bridge held aloft by two outward leaning masts, a bridge that squiggles playfully back and forth between a pair of giant arches, and a curving, cable-stayed bridge held up by a pair of V-shaped masts that would tower against the skyline like boxer Rocky Balboa's arms in his famous victory pose.

All three concepts would feature glass windscreens, with partial canopies overhead; none would be entirely enclosed in a glass tube.

Designed by Boston architect Miguel Rosales, a nationally respected specialist in bridge design, along with Parsons Brinckerhoff, a national engineering firm, the concepts are all structurally and financially feasible, Paris said.

But while the county and commission stress that they haven't made a choice yet, they say they are leaning toward the cable-stayed design because of its aesthetic power.

Leaning toward a choice

It would be the tallest of the three proposals, and its walkway, designed in a single curve extending north from the Mall to the harbor, appears to pull back respectfully from the Rock Hall to avoid blocking views from the Mall of its building, designed by the globally famous architect I.M. Pei.

The cable-stayed concept also has the advantage of having a single foundation structure, as opposed to two for the suspension bridge and four for the double arch. It could also be easier to build over the active lakefront railroad tracks.

Paris said that for all those reasons, lakefront and downtown stakeholders and civic leaders who have seen the designs in recent private meetings have signaled a preference for the cable-stayed concept.

A rendering depicts the double-arch design option for the 900-foot-long pedestrian bridge on Cleveland's lakefront devised by Boston architect Miguel Rosales and Parsons Brinckerhoff.

He declined to say whether the stakeholders - whom he declined to identify - included the city, which owns or controls lakefront land, or entities such as the Cleveland Browns, the Great Lakes Science Center or the Rock Hall.

"People responded really positively" to the cable-stayed design, he said. "It may be helpful for the public to know that this is the one that a lot of the folks that are involved around that area seem to prefer."

Bonnie Teeuwen, director of public works for the county, said that no decision has been made on the designs.

"There are pros and cons to each of them," she said. But she added: "We have reached out to stakeholders on the three designs, and in terms of the structure that's getting the strongest response, it's the cable-stayed option. It's the direction we suspect this will go, but we'd be curious to see if the public shares that view."

In an interview, Rosales, the lead designer for the bridge, also declined to say whether he had a preference.

But he said that all three concepts are capable of embodying a new era of structural design in a city famous for its bridges.

A new era of bridge design

"The goal is to make the best connection possible between downtown and the waterfront," he said. "It should be a special bridge that celebrates the link that's been missing for so long. I'm also trying to push Cleveland along in the next stage of evolution in bridge design. It's so nice that this new era will be defined by a pedestrian bridge."

The bridge could become the third on the city's lakefront designed by Rosales. He also designed an $8 million drawbridge for North Coast Harbor that is scheduled for completion in 2016.

And he created a concept for a bridge for the eastern end of Whiskey Island as part of the future Lake Link trail, which would make it far easier to reach Wendy Park on the lakefront.

Cleveland Metroparks, which will build the $6 million Whiskey Island bridge, is interviewing four teams vying to provide the final engineering for the structure, and Rosales is on one of those teams.

A long term goal

Creating a bridge from the Mall to North Coast Harbor and lakefront attractions including the Rock Hall has been something of a holy grail in Cleveland city planning for nearly two decades.

Yet until now, the city has been unable to mobilize support and fund the project. The city failed three times in recent years to win a federal grant for the project under the TIGER program, short for Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery.

A rendering depicts the suspension design option for the 900-foot-long pedestrian bridge on Cleveland's lakefront devised by Boston architect Miguel Rosales and Parsons Brinckerhoff.

But as a result of a new partnership with Cuyahoga County formed in 2013, the city and county each pledged $10 million to the project, and the state kicked in another $5 million.

Galvanized by the 2106 Republican National Convention, the city and county are pushing the project to completion on a timeline far faster than normal for similar projects.

"It is aggressive," Paris said, "but we think it's achievable, and we're only going to do it if we can do it the right way."

Other projects undertaken by the Group Plan Commission include the $32 million makeover of Public Square, recently approved by the city's Planning Commission.

One of the complexities of the pedestrian bridge project is that its northern end it will have to pass high over the Shoreway and Erieside Avenue, requiring a circular ramp and a staircase to allow pedestrians and cyclists to descend to street level.

Hotel proposal could block views

Renderings and plans show that the ramp and staircase would have to occupy a fair amount of the 300-foot-wide space between the Rock Hall and the Great Lakes Science Center, just south of a spot where lakefront developer Richard Pace has proposed building a multistory hotel tower.

Pace told Plain Dealer Reporter Michelle McFee recently that he has not withdrawn the hotel concept for that site.

A hotel located directly north of the bridge ramp and staircase would block direct northerly views of North Coast Harbor and the Lake Erie horizon.

Aside from such specific concerns, the bridge is meant to provide the public with a direct, more enticing and more easily walkable path from the Mall and the city's new convention center to North Coast Harbor and Lake Erie than the current street network and the busy and unsightly traffic bridges at East Ninth and West Third streets.

"We want to give people a clear, obvious and attractive way to get down to the waterfront," Paris said, referring to the barrier created by the lakefront railroads and the Shoreway as "sort of the moat of Cleveland."

"This is an exciting moment," Paris said. "Getting public engagement and involvement [on the design] is one of the most important parts of the project, because this is being built for the public."