Beitner Bridge rebuild moves to bid stage after flood washout

The long closure of Beitner Bridge is moving into its next phase, with the rebuild now out for bids and Grand Traverse County expecting to award a construction contract in mid-July. The bridge over the Boardman/Ottaway River was completely washed out in spring flooding, and the loss has left Beitner Road closed from Williams Road to River Road in Blair Township while traffic is pushed onto Cass Road and other county arteries.

That reroute has been felt most sharply in Traverse City’s busiest travel corridors. South Airport Road, which normally carries about 40,000 to 45,000 vehicles a day, has taken on more of the load after Beitner, which handled about 20,000 vehicles daily before the flood. The county road commission’s traffic-count program tracks those volumes, and the numbers explain why the shutdown has been more than a local inconvenience: it has shifted a major commuter route onto roads already carrying heavy traffic, with added strain for drivers, emergency responders and nearby businesses.

The road commission said it is working with the Michigan Department of Transportation to get signals installed along the detour route, a sign that officials are trying to make the workaround function better while the bridge remains out. Grand Traverse County Road Commission minutes from April 23 put the project timeline on track for a start around July, and design work was finalized in May before the project went to bid.

A bid summary identified Molon Excavation as the apparent low bidder for the Beitner work. The company could begin within seven days of award, and the road commission estimated the Beitner job alone would take two to three weeks. If Molon were awarded both Beitner Bridge and Brown Bridge work, the company said both projects could be finished in about four weeks total. Separate approvals already listed $100,000 for Beitner Bridge structure removal and $109,400 for Brown Bridge culvert repairs.

County projections still point to a Beitner Bridge reopening on January 1, 2027, which means the closure is likely to stretch through the rest of the construction season and into winter. Watkins has said the build period should take roughly four to six months once work begins, but the mid-July award would be the first tangible step toward restoring one of the county’s key river crossings.

The bridge loss has also become part of a broader flood recovery effort tied to state and federal disaster requests. Governor Gretchen Whitmer asked the U.S. Small Business Administration for disaster relief on Wednesday and, on June 5, sought a presidential major disaster declaration after severe storms, heavy rain, rapid snowmelt and nine confirmed tornadoes damaged 43 Michigan counties between April 10 and 21. In Grand Traverse County, the Beitner washout remains one of the clearest examples of how that flooding translated into daily disruption on the ground.