Existing bridges to Hilton Head will not become a public park, officials indicate. Why?
The existing bridges between Hilton Head Island and Bluffton will not be turned into a massive public park during the U.S. 278 corridor project, local officials have recently indicated.
This past summer, the S.C. Department of Transportation unveiled its plan to demolish the bridges and build a new six-lane bridge just south of the highway’s current footprint.
Some island residents, though, at the time argued that SCDOT should keep the old bridges in place and use them to create new bicycle and walking paths.
Months later, that idea has apparently been rejected.
Shawn Colin, senior adviser to Hilton Head’s town manager, said last week he believes that the town, Beaufort County and SCDOT agree that a “new bridge with bike and ped (pedestrian) facilities is a more cost-effective treatment for consideration.”
SCDOT in July said that its proposed six-lane bridge would include a 10-foot-wide bicycle and running trail along its southern edge.
The idea of building a park on the current bridges, which are owned by the state, has been “evaluated and vetted by all the project partners,” Colin said.
“The state would not object if the county or the town would like to take over ownership of that facility,” Colin said, but such a maneuver “would entail a significant ... ongoing annual maintenance budget” for local officials. He did not elaborate on those expected costs.
Building a park might also “add a couple more years to the project schedule,” Colin said during a virtual Q&A session with Bill Miles, president and CEO of the Hilton Head Island-Bluffton Chamber of Commerce.
The state currently expects construction on the project to last three years, beginning in late 2023 or early 2024. SCDOT has estimated that it will cost $6.6 million to demolish the existing bridges.
Colin did not respond to a phone message Friday. Craig Winn, the SCDOT project manager, in a phone call Friday told a reporter to contact Pete Poore, an agency spokesman. Poore did not respond to a request for comment.
Jared Fralix, assistant Beaufort County administrator, in a Friday interview confirmed that the park is not expected to be built “at this time.”
There’s little movement on the idea, Fralix said.
He added that the state now appears to be leaning toward making the pathway on its proposed six-lane bridge 12 feet wide instead of 10.
MKSK, a Greenville-based land planning firm that the town hired to suggest tweaks to SCDOT’s proposal, previously argued that transportation officials should make the pathway 14 feet wide.
‘What a terrible thing to waste’
Pastor John Miller, of the island’s Chapel Without Walls, during an impassioned speech in late July told SCDOT to seriously consider the idea of building a park on the existing U.S. 278 bridges.
Miller’s plea mirrored a similar pitch from state Rep. Jeff Bradley, who last year said local leaders should use the old bridges to construct bicycle lanes and a massive linear park to host festivals and public art.
“What a terrible thing to waste,” Bradley said at the time.
Winn, the state’s project manager, earlier this year said the park idea was not totally out of the question.
“We basically committed to having some more discussion on it in the future,” including with county officials, he told The Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette in August.
Winn added that he had spoken with Bradley about the concept at July’s U.S. 278 public hearing.
Bradley, R-Hilton Head, did not respond to a phone message Friday.
What was Bradley’s plan?
During a news conference in August 2020, Bradley said that he and civil engineers had discussed how to create a parking lot on Jenkins Island for residents to access the proposed bridge park. He said the lot could be built on town-owned land where large power lines now connect Hilton Head to the mainland.
Bradley said he did not have an exact cost for the park, and it would need to be approved by local governments.
If given the go-ahead, he said, bridge demolition costs could be transferred to a trust for the creation and maintenance of the park.
Bradley, at the time, said he would establish a nonprofit, the Calibogue Skyway Park Foundation, to promote the project and eventually gather public input.
The nonprofit was formed on Aug. 23, 2020, state records show. The organization did not have gross receipts greater than $50,000 last year, according to the Internal Revenue Service.
“I wasn’t aware of that at all,” Winn previously said of the Calibogue Skyway Park Foundation.
