Along the Mississippi River, between Missouri and Illinois, an important river crossing is undergoing a major transformation. Under a $284 million design-build contract, crews are making steady progress on the Chester Bridge Replacement Project. A unique four-span, three-tower, 2,900-foot-long, cable-stayed bridge (which uses cables to support its deck from towers) is being constructed upstream from the existing 81-year-old Chester Bridge.
The new structure — to be named the Don Welge Memorial Bridge — will be twice as wide as the existing bridge and is designed to minimize risk to navigation traffic on the river. Additionally, the existing roadway is being relocated on the Missouri side and pavement improvements will be made on the Illinois side.
The Chester Bridge — which connects the cities of Chester, Illinois, and Perryville, Missouri, via Route 51 — carries approximately 7,000 vehicles per day. Twenty-five percent of that traffic is commercial motor vehicle traffic. The bridge is the only Mississippi River crossing between Cape Girardeau and St. Louis, Missouri.
Maintenance of the existing two-span truss bridge has been a continuing challenge. It is typically shut down for one lane of traffic for some sort of repair or emergency inspection a couple times a year. It is also subject to flood-related closures.
“This major river bridge is vital to agricultural traffic, area industries, and travelers,” said Brian Okenfuss, Project Director at the Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT). “While the current bridge is safe, it is in poor condition. The existing structure is too narrow by today’s standards. It has two 11-foot-wide lanes and no shoulders, while the new bridge will have two 12-foot-wide lanes and two 10-foot-wide shoulders. The roadway on the Missouri approach to the bridge is in the floodplain and occasionally floods. This project will remove the levee closure gate and will raise the new roadway embankment above the height of the levee.”
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The new bridge will be named in honor of former Chester resident, Don Welge. “Don was a local businessman who had facilities on both sides of the river,” Okenfuss said. “He was always a strong advocate for replacing the existing structure.”
The new bridge is being constructed by The Ames Team, comprised of Ames Construction Inc. and Parsons Transportation Group. Ames is the primary contractor; Parsons is providing the design and construction support. Shannon & Wilson is serving as the project's geotechnical engineer, since the bridge lies within the New Madrid Fault seismic zone.
Construction began in September of 2023. The new bridge is scheduled to open for traffic in July of 2026, and the final project completion date is December 1, 2026. Traffic will continue to utilize the existing Chester Bridge during construction until the new bridge is opened to traffic. After traffic is switched over, the existing bridge will be demolished by December of 2026.
“MoDOT and IDOT [the Illinois Department of Transportation] are sharing the cost of the primary Mississippi River Bridge equally, while each state pays for 100 percent of their approaches,” Okenfuss said. “Federal funds will reimburse states for 85 percent of the cost. The remaining 15 percent comes from the states.”
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Actually, two bridges are being replaced on the Chester Bridge project.
“There is the main river bridge, the existing two-span truss main bridge. And then, toward the Missouri side, the route crosses the Horse Island Chute, which is an old arm of the river,” said Vincent Gastoni, Chester Bridge Design Manager/Principal Project Manager at Parsons. “When it floods, the chute fills up and provides conveyance of the river as well. So, there is a second bridge over the Horse Island Chute.
“We're replacing both bridges. First, we're building the main cable-stayed bridge. Then we're filling in the floodway with a new, 65-foot-tall embankment to carry the roadway to Horse Island Chute through the floodway, where we're building the second bridge from the chute going toward Missouri. MoDOT is paying for construction of the new Horse Island Chute Bridge.”
The current Chester bridge — a two-span truss structure with a main middle-river pier — was originally constructed in 1942 and was reconstructed in 1944 after a severe storm destroyed the main span. The bridge eliminated the need for a ferry to cross the Mississippi River between Perryville and Chester.
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“The current bridge has a main navigation channel and also an auxiliary navigation channel on the Missouri side of that main river pier,” Gastoni said. “One existing challenge is that on the Illinois side, the pier is actually very close to navigation traffic, and over the life of the bridge, that pier has been struck more than once by barge traffic.
“So, one goal of this project was to provide a larger, wider main navigation opening on the Illinois side, as well as maintaining the minimum navigation opening on the Missouri side.
“On the Missouri side, the roadway levels are below the top of the levee. Part of this project is to correct that segment of the roadway, get it up above the levee out of the 100-year floodway elevation, as well as providing a very resilient new modern structure to replace the aging existing one.”
“The new main bridge is a three-tower, four-span, cable-stayed bridge, which is unique in its configuration,” he added. “Most cable-stayed bridges that people see are two towers and three spans or a single tower and two spans.
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“The three-span configuration allows us to span over both those navigation channels, which was important. The first Missouri tower is actually far outside of the 500-foot navigation channel. While the new bridge still has a main river tower, the new bridge design reduces the risk to the bridge in the future.
“And then on the Illinois side, that tower location was pushed back to enhance navigation mobility by creating a larger navigation span there.”
He pointed out that another important consideration in designing the new bridge was the proximity of the Perryville Regional Airport, which is only a few miles from the bridge site — making the elevation of the bridge towers a critical factor in the design.
The new Chester Bridge structures are in a different location, upstream from the original bridges. Gastoni said that MoDOT and IDOT put forth two alignment options for the design-build teams to choose from. Both were upstream of the existing bridge.
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“Those two options were primarily driven by right of way constraints,” Gastoni said. “Location upstream from the existing bridge provided more layout options and also allowed for better geometrics for tying back into the existing roadway.
“The first alignment was very near — basically building parallel to — the existing bridge. The other alignment they offered was offset farther upriver. Our team chose this second location. It moved us away from the existing bridge. That was to reduce construction risk that would exist if building next to the older bridge.”
The first item of permanent work on the project was the construction of the Missouri Tower foundations, which began in the fall of 2023. That tower, a major milestone, was completed in October 2024.
Gastoni said that construction on the other two piers — the main river pier and the Illinois tower — is on track.
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“We're up out of the water on the foundations for all the three main towers,” he said. “The Illinois tower should be complete in April of this year, and the main central river pier should be completed shortly after that, in June or July.
“We've started erecting the cable stays and superstructure on the Missouri tower. That's underway right now. The erection of the cable stays and superstructure, which is done as each pier is completed, should be finished in about January of 2026. And then we'll continue to complete the major finish work on the project barriers, the pavement, and so on.”
He added that the new embankment at the Horse Island Chute is in place up to its intended height. That embankment will be settling over the next year and a half, as the project moves closer to the pavement completion and bridge opening date.
Gastoni said that at the top of the list of construction challenges on the project is the Mississippi River itself.
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“The river runs high in the spring, and it goes low in the summer, and we got a significant amount of barge traffic daily,” he said. “So, the river is the main challenge on this project for constructability.
“The foundations were also a major challenge. We used drilled shaft foundations on the Illinois tower and the main river tower. Those drilled shaft foundations out in the middle of the river were a big construction challenge.
“The coffer cell at the main river pier, and installing those large and very deep drilled shaft foundations down into the rock sockets, were probably the next most challenging aspects. Again, you're out in the river while you're doing that, so you can never escape the river.”
Various types of road traffic, as well as maritime traffic, will benefit from the Chester Bridge replacement, according to Okenfuss.
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“The new bridge will allow extra wide agricultural traffic to cross without needing to close the opposing lane of traffic,” he said. “By raising the Missouri approach, the roadway will no longer need to be closed for flooding, which adversely affects local businesses that depend on the bridge to transport goods across the river. Also, the span length is increasing from 650 feet to 885 feet, which will allow barges to more safely pass under the new bridge.”
“The wide shoulders will provide safety measures for disabled vehicles, or even people who want to cross the bridge on those shoulders,” Gastoni added. “It's not a designated bike route, but it does lie along a current bike route that goes between both states.
“The new bridge is designed to be very low maintenance. It will also be easier to maintain, meaning less demand on the states' DOT inspection and maintenance crews.”
Photos courtesy of Parsons Corporation
