Timeline puts completion of Arch grounds renovation in 2016

ST. LOUIS • Regional leaders may gather in two years to toast the opening of the renovated Gateway Arch grounds, as they have long promised.

But the overhaul won’t be complete.

According to a construction timeline released Tuesday, the $380 million project estimates an end date already a half-year behind schedule.

Leaders had hoped for months that they could finish by the Arch’s 50th anniversary on Oct. 28, 2015. But over the past several weeks, as they broke down the work with a professional construction manager, they realized there was simply too much to get done, with too many competing goals.

“It’s complex,” said Maggie Hales, executive director of CityArchRiver 2015, the foundation that is raising money and spearheading design. “It’s really, really complex.”

But it is also about quality and care, said Tom Bradley, superintendent of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, which includes the Arch grounds.

“Give us time to make sure we have a good product,” Bradley said. “We don’t want stuff to break right after it opens. We don’t want to jury-rig security lines because what we laid out didn’t work.”

Recent delays — the federal shutdown this fall, and a disagreement between agencies last week — haven’t helped. But the renovation wasn’t going to make the 2015 deadline even before those setbacks.

The directors of the organizations managing overall construction — CityArchRiver, the Great Rivers Greenway trail district and the National Park Service — agreed there are three main issues.

First, leaders decided they needed to break the overhaul into several smaller jobs. Project proponents promised to keep construction dollars in local pockets when they pitched the 3/16-cent sales tax increase that passed this spring. So managers divided the work into 11 pieces, making it easier for local companies to win the bids.

“We had a lot to work through,” said Susan Trautman, executive director of Great Rivers Greenway, the group that will oversee the use of tax dollars on the project.

Second, the National Park Service insisted on keeping the grounds accessible to guests during construction — by way of observation decks and walkways overlooking the work — hoping the park’s 2.5 million annual visitors won’t be scared away.

And that meant pushing some parts of the project down the line.

The Arch garage, for instance, is scheduled to be torn down to make way for a grass amphitheater, children’s garden and pathway into the Laclede’s Landing bar district. But leaders decided to keep it up until at least next fall, so visitors can still park there next summer.

“The visitor experience, that’s the most important thing,” Trautman said.

Finally, the park service wanted to make sure everything was done correctly, park superintendent Bradley said.

“We want good design. We don’t want to rush into something we regret,” he said. “Here’s the park service saying, ‘Give us more time. We want to work through it carefully, methodically,’ and the partner says, ‘I’d like to achieve this date.’ So it just requires dialog and compromise, and that’s kind of what you’re seeing.”

The result, in the end, is a patchwork of sub-projects.

By the 2015 anniversary, the reflecting pools and paths should be done, as should the new sloping trails south of the Arch to the riverfront. The Missouri Department of Transportation will be finished with street work. The bike trails along the Mississippi River will be complete.

The park-over-the-highway will be landscaped and will run right up to the opening of the new Museum of Westward Expansion, under the Arch.

But the northern paths to the river won’t be finished until December, as construction teams back out along Arch pathways like workers mopping their way out of a bathroom.

And the museum — whose exhibits make it the most expensive project in the renovation — isn’t scheduled to open until May 2016, at least six months after the Arch’s anniversary.

Walter Metcalfe, chairman of the CityArchRiver board, did not return a phone call or email seeking comment on Tuesday.

Last week, he said he wouldn’t agree to any holdup.

“None of the delays they’ve given to me so far are really understandable,” he said. “Sure, people have to work hard and press hard, but that’s the date. Let’s go for it.”

But Hales said Tuesday afternoon that she had discussed the timeline with Metcalfe.

The October anniversary is an important day, she said. “It’s hugely symbolic,” she said.

And setting a deadline, she said, helps everyone pull toward one date.