On a clear autumn day, the panoramic view from atop the unfinished Gerald Desmond Replacement Bridge alongside Long Beach harbor is as stunning as the construction below.
By the time the $1.5 billion cable-stayed bridge is complete, laborers will have laid 300,000 cubic feet of concrete, equal to about 60.6 million gallons, and erected more than 90 million pounds of steel and steel reinforcement.
On any given day, more than 300 construction workers, welders, engineers and others are giving shape to the bridge.
“We are literally changing the skyline of Long Beach in a dramatic fashion,” said Steve MacLennan, the bridge’s program manager. “You have one shot to really do this right.”
Billed by Long Beach port and city officials as an iconic structure, the six-lane bridge will span 1.5 miles and is set to fully open in 2018. Massive cables will string out like a fan from towers supporting the structure. Though it’s a year behind schedule and more than $500 million over budget, Long Beach Harbor Commission President Lori Ann Guzman believes construction is back on track and will be done right.
“I am really optimistic,” Guzman said. “With a project of this magnitude, you are going to run into challenges. You are going to have engineering questions. Building a cable-stayed bridge along so many fault lines has never been done, really, globally.”