Local food, music, prizes, a DJ and children’s activities will all be on deck, literally, when St. Paul’s Smith Avenue High Bridge reopens in December.

The Minnesota Department of Transportation plans a public ribbon-cutting and celebration on Dec. 2 when the link between the city’s West End and West Side reopens across the Mississippi River.

The improved span, which originally opened in 1987, includes a modern bridge deck and better bicycle and pedestrian access. Work began in September 2017 to replace the deck and install a new, taller ornamental railing that’s also intended prevent suicidal leaps from the 160-foot bridge.

The $20 million in bridge work was part of a major road-resurfacing project that unfolded in 2017 along Minnesota 149 — better known to drivers as Smith Avenue and Dodd Road — from West Seventh Street in St. Paul south to Interstate 494 near the Mendota Heights and Eagan border.