Cook County Highway Department engineering technician Adam Nelson and engineer Krysten Foster are shown with the awards they received from the Associated General Contractors of Minnesota for their work on Cook County’s CSAH 5 bridge in Lutsen. Photo courtesy Cook County Highway Department
Highway department engineering technician Adam Nelson and engineer Krysten Foster recently attended MnDOT-AGC’s spring meeting to accept an award for the bridge replacement partnership project between Cook County and Lutsen Mountains Corporation (LMC) on CSAH 5.
The Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) and Associated General Contractors of Minnesota (AGC) Bridge Construction awards committee named Cook County’s CSAH 5 bridge, which is just past Eagle Ridge check-in, as the “Best Small Bridge” (i.e. costing less than $1.5 million) constructed in Minnesota in 2018.
MnDOT and AGC recognized the construction project team including contractor S&R Reinforcing Inc. and structural design firm Erickson Engineering for exceptional workmanship, construction site safety, timeliness, and innovative project delivery.
Adam Nelson, Scott Benolken and Randy Roberts from the Cook County Highway Department oversaw day-today construction operations during last summer’s project with Foster serving as Cook County’s project engineer for the construction phase.
S&R Reinforcing managed to remove the old timber bridge in time to accommodate the annual Lutsen 99er event in late June and opened the new bridge to traffic in August. Maintaining access to destinations north of the bridge during construction presented unique challenges for the project team with dozens of pedestrians and delivery vehicles passing through the work zone on a daily basis.
In the workmanship category, engineers specifically noted the bridge surface quality, railing details, and overall aesthetics as award-winning features. The aesthetic features were funded by LMC under a cooperative agreement with Cook County.
In addition to Cook County’s project, two complex MnDOT-led projects received top honors at the engineering awards event in St. Paul.
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