The City of Kirkland is hoping to build an iconic bridge to connect two pieces of the Cross Kirkland Corridor, and city staff is, apparently, dreaming big.
The connection would bridge the intersection at NE 124th Street and Totem Lake Boulevard, among the busiest intersections in the city. The city is currently in the beginning design phases, and hopes to have a bridge complete in the next three years.
It’s one of several pieces in major investment in infrastructure around the former Totem Lake Malls site. The city improved stormwater facilities and developed an old rail line, and plans to redevelop the land around Totem Lake itself into a park.
With each improvement, the city sent information to the owner of Totem Lake Malls.
“We wanted people to know the city was investing,” Triplett said. “We were investing in the corridor, the park and in making it a great, connective place to help serve the mall.”
The investment, Triplett said, likely played a big hand in the sale of the mall site to CenterCal and the eventual contstruction the Village at Totem Lake, the massive mixed-use development that will change the face of the Totem Lake neighborhood.
The pedestrian bridge is the next step in creating a local identity, a sense of place, for the area.
“[We’re envisioning] a mini version of the Brooklyn Bridge for pedestrians and bicycles,” Kirkland City Manager Kurt Triplett said. “It’s something people would instantly recognize as a centerpiece of the mall and the park.”
The city brought in a team to evaluate redevelopment opportunities around the old Totem Lake Mall site shortly after Triplett was hired in 2010. Among the main suggestions were to expand access to Totem Lake and implement a rails-to-trails project on the old BSNF rail line.
The city approved the purchase of the lake on Jan. 17.
“It’s always been a sea of asphalt,” Triplett said. “We want to create a Central Park, a Greenlake Park, around the lake.”
The bridge has always been part of the Cross Kirkland Corridor master plan, both as a way to create a seamless corridor and to improve accessibility to the Village at Totem Lake and the new park.
But the bridge comes with a handful of major design challenges. First, it must stretch across a major intersection diagonally and without a central support beam. It must also be a shallow angle to allow for those with disabilities.
Hanging above the bridge site are high-tension transmission lines, meaning the bridge can’t be too high.
“And it has to land in one of the most environmentally sensitive areas in the city,” Triplett said.
The city has hired the consulting group COWI to design the bridge. The group has a hand in well-known bridges around the world, including the Great Belt Bridge in Denmark, and a long list of smaller, urban bridges similar to the proposed site in Kirkland.
Triplett specifically mentioned the Sundial Bridge in Redding, Calif., a cable-stayed bridge made of steel, glass and granite.
But at the moment, the city’s ideas are just that — ideas. Kirkland held and open house on Thursday, Feb. 2, at the Kirkland Justice Center with the hope of finding out what exactly city residents and potential users want in the bridge. The meeting was one of several throughout the design process.
“There are lots of creative ideas, like a balcony that looks down at the lake with the benches on it, and we’ll test that with the community,” Triplett said. “Would you use it that way? What do you think of the landmark status?”
The final design will be a trade off between aesthetics, cost and practicality, Triplett said. The city hopes to have a comprehensive design next spring and pursue federal grants in the fall of 2018. The city is using local money for the bridge design, but will use outside funding for construction, which should begin in 2019 with completion in 2020.
