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The renovation of Yesler Way Bridge is featured in this month’s issue of Engineering News Record (ENR) Northwest, and tonight our project team gets honored for their good work on the Yesler Way Bridge Rehabilitation Project. The effort won ENR Northwest’s Best Project Award for Renovation/Restoration.

Judges reviewed more than 30 projects located in Oregon, Alaska, and Washington state, and this evening in Seattle presents the regional awards.

The winners have a chance to be the ENR ‘Best of the Best’ in their category, as judges from across the country compare all submittals nationwide, as they have in years past.

Making a mark – a landmark.

The Yesler Bridge is one of Seattle’s oldest permanent steel roadway bridges, originally built in 1910—long before Interstate-5 cut through the hill just east of it, and, back when the Mayor’s Office was in the iconic trapezoid structure built prior to the regrading that lowered street levels on Terrace and 5th Avenue.

Honoring Seattle history.

Yesler is a historic Seattle name, woven into restoration project outreach. Honoring history; integrating new building knowledge; and designing for the future, all came together in the project to rehabilitate Yesler Way S bridge. It took a great deal of coordination and collaboration — an award-winning amount — to renovate the bridge that carries the intersection of Yesler and Terrace over 4th Ave. Project elements included:

An east wall seismic upgrade;

A new west wall;

A new superstructure*.

*This key rehabilitation eliminated the risk of collapse, should a vehicle strike a column of this formerly multi-span bridge!

Something old, something renewed.

The rehabilitation team worked with the Pioneer Square-Skid Road National Historic District; Pioneer Square Historic District; and International Special Review District to maintain the bridge’s historic pedestrian railings, fascia girders, ornamental columns and cladding, capitals, corbels, and light fixtures.

Shared vintage.

You know the old saying, “it takes one to know one…”? Well, the Engineering News-Record (ENR) launched about 35 years before the Yesler Way S bridge was built! Even then, Engineering News covered many Seattle projects, including the call for bids to pave Yesler Way with granite blocks and the Cedar River flood of November 1911. That 140+ years of industry expertise makes the ENR Best Projects program a brass ring for teams to strive for.

Visit http://www.enrbestprojectsawards.com/ for more information on ENR regional awards events.