From CITY OF WATERVILLE
Earlier this week, the city of Waterville voted unanimously to assume ownership of the Roche de Boeuf Interurban Bridge from the Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT).
The vote comes following efforts by the city and the Save the Bridge Association to discover new options to prevent the structure from being demolished completely.
“We are thankful to ODOT for their immense cooperation in recent weeks and months to help bring our ideas to life, and to Gov. DeWine for seeing the opportunity in our vision,” said Waterville Mayor Tim Pedro. “Many thanks are also owed to the Save the Bridge Association who worked tirelessly to advocate for preserving this piece of our community’s history.”
The 118-year-old structure was set for complete demolition in the spring of 2025 but was given a one-year pause by DeWine for the city to form a committee and explore alternate options. An additional effort was then put forth in April 2026 to extend the window of cooperation for the city to work with ODOT on a plan that would lead to the city assuming ownership.
“We understand Waterville’s sentiment for this historic structure and were glad to serve as advisors to the city during their quest to further explore alternatives,” said Pat McColley, ODOT District 2 deputy director.
Now that a transfer of ownership has been agreed upon, ODOT and their contractor, Kokosing, will move forward with a partial demolition, which the state will pay $4,287,754 to complete. Partial demolition includes keeping the piers and arch barrels in place; removing the spandrel walls, earthen fill, and hanging debris from the bridge; and removing concrete and rebar debris which has been deposited into the waterway. All liability during the partial demolition project period will be assumed by the contractor and ODOT.
“The level of progress and production in the last 60 days has been substantial to reach this point of resolution. Despite working with the group for the past year and a half, the past 60 days have been the most productive and realistic. ODOT wants to thank all of the parties who have come together to contribute to this solution,” McColley said.
Partial demolition is expected to begin after July 6. Conditions have been agreed upon which could ultimately lead to full demolition, including:
- Partial or full collapse of an arch barrel or pier
- Any cracking, visual or audible instability, superstructure or substructure instability or deformation, or concrete pieces falling from the arch barrels
- The contractor seeing an unsafe condition in the field and not feeling comfortable proceeding
- Partial demolition requires extra work causing the estimate to exceed the contractor’s revised quote
- The contractor’s demolition engineer determines partial demolition is not feasible
- By recommendation of ODOT and/or contractor, after discussion with the city
Any extra costs associated with the partial demolition or full demolition project will be the responsibility of ODOT. The city will only be financially responsible for any extra work requested by the city.
After the partial demolition project is completed, the city looks forward to working with community groups, like Save the Bridge Association, and other local government partners in redeveloping the bridge into a community asset to be used by residents for hiking, biking, and other recreational activities.
The Roche de Bouef interurban structure crosses the Maumee River between Wood and Lucas counties. The earth-filled arch structure, which originally carried an interurban trolley line for the Ohio Electric Company, was built in 1908. The structure was last used for trolley traffic in 1937 and was then temporarily used for vehicular traffic from 1941-1946. It has not been in use since.
