Have you seen it yet? Illuminated art being installed on two downtown Raleigh bridges
After a lengthy delay, the illuminated steel grills meant to add some pizzazz to two downtown Raleigh bridges are being installed this month.
The first completed sections are now backlit at night on the west side of the Capital Boulevard bridge over Peace Street. Workers hope to install and light the remaining grills on the east side of the bridge and on both sides of the Wade Avenue bridge over Capital by the end of the year, according to the N.C. Department of Transportation.
The artwork was designed by artist Vicki Scuri of Washington State, who says the pattern in the metal panels was inspired by Raleigh’s oak trees and the nearby Pigeon House Branch Creek. The panels will run the length of the bridges, under the railings, between concrete medallions sculpted in the pattern of an abstract oak leaf.
NCDOT proposed adding art to the new bridges as part of an effort to rebuild a 1-mile stretch of Capital at the north end of downtown. The bridges they replaced were more than 60 years old, with outdated designs.
The city, which tries to incorporate art into public projects, put up money for accessories such as a greenway trail, street trees and the artwork on the bridges, which was approved by the city’s Public Art and Design Board.
Reconstruction of this stretch of Capital began in 2016 and was finished in the summer of 2020. But the electro-chemical coating applied to the steel panels to prevent rust was in short supply during the coronavirus pandemic, causing more than a year delay in finishing the bridge art, said NCDOT spokesman Marty Homan.
“We hope to be done by the end of the year,” Homan said.
The $37 million project brought significant change to the Peace Street interchange. The old ramps to and from Capital Boulevard were replaced with a new pattern that resulted in the demolition of several businesses along Peace Street, including Finch’s Restaurant, which dated to the 1940s.
The City Council has approved a request by Kane Realty and Williams Realty to rezone the land where those businesses stood to allow a tower up to 40 stories tall.
