The Cypress Creek Bridge rehabilitation is approaching its halfway point.

Since January, the circa-1975, 1,500-foot-long two-lane bridge that connects downtown Smithfield with the east end of town has been restricted to a single westbound lane. The Virginia Department of Transportation awarded the $8.6 million contract last year to Portsmouth-based Crofton Construction, which has projected a fall 2025 completion date.

The work includes underwater pile repairs, the demolition and replacement of 18 spans, the repainting of steel beams and replacing the bridge’s sidewalk and barriers. Over the past nine months, much of the work has occurred beneath the bridge out of the view of motorists who use the remaining open lane, but more recently some of the topside work has begun.

“Recent work activities this fall have involved continued deck repairs (topside) visible on the eastern portion of the bridge, along with substructure and superstructure waterproofing (underside) throughout the entire bridge structure,” said VDOT spokeswoman Kelly Alvord. “Additional underside project activities related to the bridge pier caps are estimated to begin late fall.”

The next milestone will come in early 2025 when traffic shifts from the open lane on the southern side of the bridge to the one that’s currently closed on the north side, Alvord  said. Traffic will remain restricted to westbound travel into the historic district for the duration of the project, with eastbound traffic leaving downtown diverted to the Route 10 Bypass via Main Street.

“While this lane shift corresponds with the second half of the topside work, work on the underside will have been in progress for quite some time,” Alvord said.

Part of what’s driving the two-year timeline, according to VDOT, is keeping the bridge open to one-way traffic. At an August VDOT presentation at Paul D. Camp Community College’s Smithfield campus, VDOT engineer Gautham Ramesh estimated shutting down the entire bridge could have shaved six to eight months off the timeline.

But that would have come at the cost of response times for ambulances and an even harder economic hit to business owners along South Church Street who say the nine-month single-lane closure has already impacted their revenue. Restricting the bridge to one-way westbound traffic rather than the alternating lane closures VDOT had initially proposed came at the request of Isle of Wight County and Smithfield to minimize impacts to fire and ambulance response times.

In May, Isle of Wight County’s Economic Development Authority launched a pilot program that pays cash back to shoppers who patronize businesses affected by the Cypress Creek Bridge project. The EDA committed $5,000 to launch Open Rewards, a free smartphone app developed by California-based technology company Bludot, which allows shoppers to earn 5% or up to $10 cash back on purchases at participating businesses on Main and North and South Church streets.

Roughly 29% or $1,464 of the $5,000 had been paid out to 257 users of the app as of August. By Oct. 29, the total paid out had increased to $3,029 or 60% to 342 users.

According to Isle of Wight Economic Development Coordinator Nicole Talton, there are 123 eligible businesses, 64 of which have had transactions generate rewards. The EDA has revised the program guidelines to include businesses on Grace and Institute streets.

Federal regulations have also played a role in the two-year timeline. At the Paul D. Camp meeting, Ramesh said federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA, requirements dictate any crane work stops if wind speeds exceed 20 mph. Army Corps of Engineers and state Department of Environmental Quality regulations also monitor the migration of certain fish species, which can sometimes impact work schedules.

To date, two of four planned multi-day shutdowns of the Cypress Creek Bridge have ended ahead of schedule. The first, which involved removal of old bridge beams, ended April 9 a full three days early. The second, which entailed placing newly fabricated beams in place of the ones removed, also ended three days early on Aug. 20. In both instances, VDOT had initially estimated a five-day closure during which both lanes would be impassable.

The August closure entailed using cranes to unload each beam from a flatbed truck. VDOT has not yet announced dates for the third or fourth multi-day closures.

The new beams are constructed with carbon fiber reinforced polymer strands, which are corrosion resistant and encased in concrete. They replaced beams made of concrete-encased steel, which can corrode and cause the concrete to fall off if exposed to brackish water like that of the Pagan River over decades.