Northside Sun
Coming Soon: Funds Earmarked For Pedestrian Bridge Connecting Museums
By Nell Luter Floyd
Thanks to recently appropriated federal dollars, plans for a one-of-a-kind, elevated pedestrian- and cyclist-friendly bridge across Lakeland Drive are moving ahead.
“Our goal is for this to open by the summer of 2026,” said Susan Garrard, president and CEO of the Mississippi Children’s Museum and board chair of the Great City Mississippi Foundation, which was a catalyst for securing the federal funds.
‘We’re making America’s 250th birthday our deadline.”
The Transportation, Housing, and Urban Development Appropriations Act, part of an appropriations package that Congress cleared earlier this month, provided $5 million for the construction of the bridge.
The bridge will provide a safe way for visitors to move between the Mississippi Agriculture and Forestry Museum and the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame, which sit on one side of Lakeland Drive, and the children’s museum and the Museum of Natural Science, which sit on the south side of Lakeland Drive.
The elevated structure will also give cyclists a way to cross Lakeland Drive (U.S. Highway 25) without having to dodge the traffic as they use the area’s multi-use trail system.
“Lakeland Drive is too dangerous to cross at grade,” Garrard said. “It has up to 10 lanes of traffic in places because of the right turn lanes, the left turn lanes and the medians.”
The bridge represents a step forward in the long-term goal of creating a much broader multi-use trail system that will connect museums across the city, said Taylor Nicholas, executive director of the Great City Mississippi Foundation, which as part of its mission supports outdoor opportunities for recreation and connected communities to create a more vibrant Jackson.
“It’s a cool project and a cool dynamic where city, state and federal leaders have come together for a project like this,” he said.
Senators Cindy Hyde-Smith and Roger Wicker provided support for the project.
“I feel like when people look at the dynamics in Washington they feel removed, but it’s helpful to know we have leaders who want to be engaged and will go to bat for projects that can make a difference,” Nicholas said.
The Mississippi Department of Transportation is overseeing the bridge project and Neel-Schaffer is the engineer, also known as the bridge master, for the project.
“We’ve been working with MDOT over a year on this project,” Garrard said. “The engineering part is significant.”
The bridge, which will be unlike any in the metro area, will have entrances at the Jamie Fowler Boyll Park, which sits on one side of Lakeland Drive, and the North Jackson Baseball Complex, which sits on the other side. The bridge will be accessible for use by anyone regardless of physical ability.
“It’s going to be an iconic feature,” said Dr. Clay Hays, a Jackson cardiologist and one of the driving forces behind the Museum Trail, the multi-use trail that starts in downtown Jackson and winds its way across the city to the LeFleur’s Bluff Complex.
Hays, whose office overlooks Lakeland Drive, believes the bridge will be a feature that drives heading into Fondren will find attractive.
“People are going to say, ‘Wow!’ It’s going to be something,” he said. “People will want to have their picture taken on the bridge.”
The total cost for the bridge is expected to be $8 million, Nicholas said. So far, a total of $6 million has been secured, including the $5 million recently appropriated and $1 million secured two years ago for planning and development.
A 20 percent match is required for the $5 million, he said. Plans are to seek funding for the match from the Legislature, he said.
The bridge is an important piece of the LeFleur’s Bluff masterplan for the green space that connects the children’s museum and the museum of natural science, Garrard said.
Drawn in 2018, the plan directs the park’s development through 2025. So does available funding from both public and private sources and guidance from the Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks and the Department of Finance and Administration, she said, naming Wier Boerner Allin as responsible for the design.
The construction of the state-of-the art playground that is accessible for all children kicked off the first phase of the masterplan and then came the creation of Spotter’s Adventure Trail that features an interactive experience and connects the children’s museum and the museum of natural science, and additional amenities.
A trail of 100 magnolia trees is in place as another draw for tourism and a celebration of the state. “We wanted something from a landscape perspective that people would travel to see, something like the cherry blossom trees in Washington, D.C. and something that would give a sense of place,” Garrard said.
A new, grander entrance to the LeFleur’s Bluff Complex that improved the flow of traffic and could be easily seen by visitors from I-55 also resulted from the masterplan.
Improvements also include extending the Museum Trail across the former LeFleur’s Bluff Golf Course to the North Jackson Baseball Complex, where it will connect with the pedestrian bridge.
The bridge will make it easy for families using the baseball complex to visit all the nearby museums and spend time at LeFleur’s Bluff when they have time between games, Hays said.
The Jackson Heart Foundation has received a $588,000 2023 Reconnecting Communities and Neighborhoods Grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation for its efforts to extend the Museum Trail further into downtown Jackson so it connects the Two Museums and the Mississippi Museum of Art and continues on to Jackson State University.
The $588,000 will support a 2.5-mile expansion of the Museum Trail through West Jackson, Hays said.
He said the Museum Trail and improvements at LeFleur’s Bluff are the result of nonprofits and government leaders at all levels working together. “We all want the same thing and that is to help Jackson,” he said.
More than $10 million in capital improvements have been made in the LeFleur’s Bluff master plan, Garrard said. The park has been enjoyed by more than 750,000 visitors, including $5.5 million of private investment in capital projects.
In 2021, the LeFleur Museum District Museums produced nearly $10 million of overall value-added impact for Hinds County, supporting 179 jobs and more than $6.5 million in labor income, according to an economic impact study by the University of Southern Mississippi.
Garrard said work continues so that additional amenities may be added to LeFleur’s Bluff so that it will draw more visitors.
“We’re inspired by other cities, especially the investments made in northwest Arkansas to bring outdoor recreations and parks to the forefront as part of their efforts to keep and attract young people,” she said.