Bridge to be a landmark, Clinton says at ceremony

LITTLE ROCK — Several hundred people watched former President Bill Clinton pick up a shovel and officially break ground at the construction site of the Clinton Presidential Park Bridge on Friday morning.

“If we do this bridge right, there will be no city in America that will have a more defining landmark,” Clinton told the crowd.

The bridge, located next to the Clinton Presidential Center, will be a pedestrian/bicycle bridge that helps close the Arkansas River Trail, a biking and walking trail along the Arkansas River.

“It will provide 14.2 miles of a continuous loop,” said Jordan Johnson, spokesman for the Clinton Foundation.

Johnson said the bridge is going to have a ramp structure that will be easier than using the Junction Bridge - a short distance upriver - which has an elevator and stairs.

“This will allow bikers, walkers, joggers, moms pushing strollers and that sort of thing ease and continuous movement across the river,” he said.

John Fernandez, an assistant secretary of commerce, said the bridge is a great opportunity for Little Rock.

“It’s really an important investment in public commerce,” Fernandez said.“These investments and projects are a sweet spot of what we do at the EDA [Economic Development Administration].”

The bridge was first built in 1899 and was originally called the Choctaw Bridge. In 1904, the Rock Island and Pacific Railroad Companies bought it and renamed it the Rock Island Bridge. The bridge hasn’t been used for rail traffic since 1980.

“This is going to be a bridge within a bridge,” Johnson said. “We’re actually going to build a bridge within this historic structure so that we maintain the integrity of the bridge.” The Clinton Foundation, the cities of Little Rock and North Little Rock, with the help of federal grants, raised more than $10 million to transform the rusted structure into a pedestrian bridge.

“It was hard, real hard,” said Dean Kumpuris, a Little Rock city director. He said it required cooperation among the cities, the state and individuals, but that everyone pulled through to raise the money.

“It’s a combination of a lot of different funds that couldn’t really be used for anything else,” Kumpuris said. “It’s a benefit to the community without taking money from somewhere else.”

The Big Dam Bridge, which is at the north end of the Arkansas River Trail, cost $12.8 million to construct. It cost $5.8 million to convert Junction Bridge into a pedestrian bridge.

He said construction on the park bridge is projected to be completed sometime next year.

Johnson said a tentative date for starting construction is July 1.

“We are still working on final arrangements with the city and last minute questions on design,” Johnson said.

Despite the presence of another pedestrian bridge, the Junction Bridge, just a few blocks from the Clinton Presidential Park Bridge, Johnson said the new bridge will be an asset to Little Rock.

“We’ve had an overwhelmingly positive response to this,” Johnson said. “Today marks that day that finally we’re at that point where all the money is in and the ceremonial turning of the dirt means we can start construction in July.”

While the new bridge will complete a loop around the river, one section of the River Trail off Cantrell Road is not biker or pedestrian friendly.

“You can still ride it, but it’s not solved,” Johnson said. “I think that’s the city’s next step, is to bridge that.”

Kumpuris said work on that particular section is on the city’s list of things to do, but that the main focus for now is making progress on the bridge.

“Today was a little bite, and we just have to take little bites at a time,” he said.

Johnson said that for safety purposes, the Clinton Presidential Park Bridge will be gated on both ends until construction is complete, but that there will be a live video camera installed on top of the Clinton Presidential Center so people can observe construction progress. He said the video feed will be available at clintonpresidentialcenter.com when construction starts.

Clinton praised the bridge’s progress as an example of boosting the state’s economy.

“What we’re doing is taking our assets and re-imagining them,” Clinton said. “This will be fun when it’s done, it will be exciting, but it will also prove that people who live here can imagine a better future and make it happen.”