RiverWorks frustrated Michigan Avenue Lift Bridge closure

Vehicles travel on the Michigan Avenue Lift Bridge on Saturday, May 27, 2023. The bridge will close for four months starting on Tuesday.

Bill Casale thought the entertainment complex he runs along the Buffalo River was finally set for a summer free of interruption.

The Buffalo RiverWorks CEO and patrons of the restaurant, concert hall and event venue will have to continue to wait as they contend with a bridge repair project that will further complicate traffic in an already bottlenecked area.

The Buffalo Department of Public Works, Parks and Streets last week sent a letter to businesses on Kelly Island that the Michigan Avenue Lift Bridge will close to pedestrian and vehicle traffic for repairs starting Tuesday. The closure is expected to last until the end of September.

"It kind of deflates you," Casale said Friday.

Kelly Island – a feather-shaped strip of land surrounded by the Buffalo River – has two access points: bridges at Ohio Street and Michigan Avenue. It contains several businesses in addition to RiverWorks, including General Mills' production facility, Wonder Coffeehouse and Grand Lady Cruises.

The $800,000 Michigan Avenue Lift Bridge project – fueled with federal, state and local funding from the Transportation Improvement Program – will rehabilitate concrete abutments, replace timber fenders and repair timber dolphins, according to a news release from the city. Although the city originally said the bridge would close May 25, the date was pushed back to limit traffic disruptions for those businesses during Memorial Day weekend.

Casale said the bridge closure will not alter RiverWorks' busy summer schedule. The greatest impact will be on the entertainment venue's larger events, including summer concerts and Music Is Art, which attracted a crowd of 50,000 last September, he said. The Dragon Boat Festival June 17 and The Dirty Heads July 13 are two other major events that will occur while the bridge is closed.

RiverWorks has a 1,000-car parking lot, but Casale said it's common for patrons to park on the northern side of the Michigan Avenue Lift Bridge and either walk or bike across to avoid congested traffic. He hopes the city and its contractors will consider making the bridge passable for pedestrians during RiverWorks' larger events.

During construction, RiverWorks will still be accessible from the south. Louisiana Street meets Ohio Street near the Ohio Street Bridge, which reopened in December after a $19 million project that took 19 months. Ganson is off Ohio Street just south of the bridge. Detour and "Business Open" signage will be posted around the area, according city officials.

"Our goal is to become a world-class destination for tourists and locals to enjoy year-round," said Bill Casale, RiverWorks' general manager.

"We don't want people to be afraid of coming out," Casale said.

RiverWorks employs nearly 300 summer workers. Nearly half rely on public transportation, he estimated.

Typically these workers use bus routes that stop at Michigan and South Park avenues, just north of the lift bridge. Casale said it's a short walk from those stops to their employer. During construction, however, these employees would need to walk almost a mile, mostly on Ganson Street, from Ohio Street.

A map of the Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority's bus routes. Buffalo RiverWorks is located just below the orange circle in the middle-left portion of the image.

Casale said he understands the need for infrastructure repairs in an aging industrial area, but he was troubled by the "lack of notice and lack of transparency" by the city. He said city officials told him this project had been in the works for two years, but he just learned about it Monday.

A structural concern in the cable system of the Michigan Avenue Lift Bridge over the Buffalo River has resulted in its closure to all vehicle and pedestrian traffic. Michigan Avenue between Ohio and Ganson streets will remain closed for several months until the cables can be replaced, said Michael J. Finn, public works commissioner for the City of Buffalo.

The rehabilitation project at the Michigan Avenue Bridge is at least the second repair in the last four years. Safety concerns caused by its cable system closed the bridge to pedestrian and vehicle traffic in June 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic halted most public activity, reducing the closure's affect on RiverWorks' limited operations.

Casale is confident RiverWorks, part of the Pearl Street Family of Companies, can make it past one more obstacle.

"We're blue-collar and resilient," he said, "like the rest of Buffalo."

A car drives on the Michigan Avenue Lift Bridge on Saturday, May 27, 2023.

Ben Tsujimoto can be reached at [email protected], at (716) 849-6927 or on Twitter at @Tsuj10.

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