DENVER — Spanning more than a hundred feet across Cherry Creek, the Delgany Street Bridge in Denver's LoDo neighborhood is a decades-old staple. But for months, neighbors say it's been out of commission.
"It's really kind of a part of the neighborhood, and we want it to come back," Andrea Kahn said Tuesday.
She's lived near 15th and Delgany streets for more than a decade and has used the former railroad bridge to get around. But age has caught up to it, and it's in desperate need of repairs.
"We called [the bridge owners] to alert them that the wood was rotting, and then someone stepped through it. So when we called them to tell them that, their response was to shut the bridge," Kahn said.
It's remained shut since, forcing people to find other ways across the creek. There is another bridge not too far from this one, but Kahn says it's an inconvenience to those who aren't as mobile.
"It's inaccessible for them to be able to use this to get to the green space," she said.
Greenway Foundation, the nonprofit that owns the bridge, recently commissioned a full structural assessment. Executive director Ryan Aids says the assessment found the bridge needs a lot of work, and it's not cheap.
"We're looking at a quarter of a million dollars," Aids said.
How soon they reopen the bridge, he says, depends on how quickly they can raise the funds for the repairs. That includes redoing the decking, so rubber mats are no longer needed, and the hand railings, which have proven to be the most costly because the price of the required steel has been volatile.
"As a small nonprofit, we don't have the budget to do this, so we do need the community's help to do it. Without that, we can’t," Aids said.
A fundraiser is now open online, and banners informing people about the fundraiser will soon appear on both sides of the bridge.
A company has agreed to do the work for free, so the only cost will be the materials. But Kahn worries asking for several hundred thousand dollars in donations will be a tall order.
"We are tired of just waiting for them to fix it," she said.
