KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — The Waterfront Bridge project is entering a new stage. Tuesday night, Knoxville City Council voted to accept a $20 million state grant to fund the project and to hire a team of designers that would create a new look.
The city of Knoxville said the goal is to lower the cost.
Rebekah Jane Justice, the city's chief of urban design and development, said there's a lot of support for increased connectivity throughout the city.
"This project is really meaningful to the south waterfront vision plan but also in creating community connectivity," Justice said. "We are very hopeful and sure that we can utilize this next design contract with CDM Smith to refine and build upon our initial concept design and refine that to create a sound and safe amenity across the river."
Councilwoman Seema Singh was one of the members who voted against it.
The city applied for a grant of $25 million in order to help with the bridge, which was estimated at $70 million.
"We don't have any of the pieces together," Singh said. "We just have $20 million from the state government and we're already starting, design, hiring firms, it just feels like, cart before the horse."
Councilman Tommy Smith voted to move the project forward. He said this is a vision from South Knoxville. The plan started in the early 2000s and due to a recession and a few other factors it hasn't moved forward, Smith said.
"This will enable parks and greenways and a lot of other connections throughout South Knoxville but also to UT's campus where the bridge will land on the north side," Smith said.
The redesign will cost around $450,000, yet the city said they're aiming to lower the price of the total project after this redesign.
"In addition to the $20 million, we approved to receive from the state last night, we also approved funding for a design architecture firm to design what the bridge would look like," Smith said.
Yet, big projects like this one are difficult to estimate the cost, Singh said, and they often go over budget. This is why there's a concern that the price could continue rising.
"It always goes up," Singh said. "I mean, this happened with the Safety Center, the Public Safety Center, this happened with the baseball stadium."
The city said they will still work on it and see what the new firm can get them.
One thing is certain, if the grant money doesn't go toward the bridge, Justice said they would either have to return it to the state or have a conversation with them.
State funds are still paid by Knoxvilians and through taxes but Justice said the focus is to find several avenues that could help.
"We are refining costs and dialing in our matches and community partnerships in order to create a funding partnership to realize the bridge," Justice said. "This is not a project that we have the capacity to fund with local dollars. So, we are relying on the raised grant federal dollars, state partnerships and our community partners. We will not spend local dollars on the construction. It is our plan to fully fund that with state federal and grant partnerships."