Inside the Lafayette Street Bridge Replacement with Operating Engineers 324 and Granite Kraemer
It’s a clear morning on the Saginaw River in Bay City—the water is calm as a sheet of glass this late summer day. Approaching the south end of the city from the west has long meant crossing the Lafayette Avenue Bridge, a bascule-style drawbridge that had stood in that place since it was built in 1938 as a Public Works Administration project at the tail end of the Great Depression.
But not today. For this year, and the next few, the Lafayette Avenue Bridge is undergoing a complete demolition and rebuild. Crane booms pierce the blue sky on both riverbanks, while barges float in the river carrying excavators, cranes, and other equipment working to remove the last of the 87-year-old stanchion pilings. This is the last of three Bay City bridges being rebuilt this decade, and the only one receiving a full rebuild. That means a lot of Operating Engineers 324 members hard at work.
“This project will include a full removal and replacement,” says Kraemer Superintendent Nolan Joyce of the Granite–Kraemer Joint Venture, the team MDOT selected to take the aging structure down and build a modern bascule in its place.
“The contract value was $113 million, set to be completed by June 2027. The Joint Venture is responsible for managing the project and will self-perform most of the work, including demo, permanent sheeting installation, foundation piling, concrete substructure, structural steel erection, mechanical installation, and new pier protection system installation.”
The change in scope is significant for Bay City, where the same Granite–Kraemer partnership rehabilitated Independence and Liberty Bridges in recent years. “This project is very different,” Joyce says. “It is a complete removal and replacement with a new bascule structure—the Indy and Liberty Bridges were essentially only rehabilitated (including updating mechanical and electrical components in the bridges) and redecking in some areas of the structures.”
This project showcases the complexity of replacing a Depression-era design with a modern rolling double-leaf bascule that meets today’s maritime and highway standards.
And yet, for all the engineering and procurement and logistics, the heartbeat of Lafayette is the people—OE324 members—who show up, shoulder the work, and keep one another safe.
A demolition measured in inches—and in hours
“Right now, we’re just in the major demo phase of the project,” says Tony Leuenberger, Granite Job Site Superintendent. “We’re down to the piling—the 1930s wood piling.”
Working inside the unknowns of a nearly century-old bridge requires patience and a steady hand. “They didn’t have the accuracy of the drawings that we have now,” Leuenberger explains. “They didn’t have the quality of the as-builts that we have now. So you’re getting into a lot of hidden things—thicker concrete than what’s on the drawings, pile locations not where there were supposed to be.”
Joyce puts a point on it: “A large challenge was the removal of the existing 1930s foundations. The team developed innovative approaches that included tailored rock-removal equipment to break and remove the existing foundations within that short work window of the navigation channel closure.”
The work is relentless by design. “We chose to work a little more aggressively, just so we can look at getting done and make sure we’re not going to push the owner’s deadline,” Leuenberger says. The job is running 24/7 with one weekend shutdown per month; pile-driving starts as soon as late September. Operators are cycling among four mainline excavators, several cranes, the tugboats, three minis, and a long-reach unit “going at all times,” Leuenberger says—“they [Operating Engineers] have the brunt of the work right now… all the breakers breaking concrete.”
“Overall, we’ve got about 14 operators on staff right now,” he adds—a number that will flex as the project crests from removal into rebuild.
A bridge that matters
The Lafayette carries M-13/M-84 over the Saginaw River, tying the city’s east and west sides to the region’s arterial spine. The existing bascule opened in 1938 and served as Bay City’s southernmost Saginaw crossing for decades. The replacement will preserve the city’s maritime pass-through—critical for freighters and local industry—while giving motorists a reliable, modern structure.
“This project will replace the aging bridge from the 1930s that connects the south end of town to I-75 without going through downtown,” Joyce says. “It also sees a lot of agricultural traffic to Michigan Sugar with the sugar beet trucks. Reduced long-term maintenance and impacts to bridge openings and closings—as the old structure was not as reliable as the new structure will be.”
The new bascule system will be a double-leaf rolling bascule with a filled grid deck and under-deck counterweight, designed for durable operations and wide navigational clearances.
“Seat time” on two shores and a river
For apprentices, Lafayette is a master class in heavy civil construction you can’t simulate in a classroom.
“I came a long way,” says Rebekah Peck, an OE324 apprentice working on the project. “I started cleaning the crane and went from that to operating pretty much everything equipment-wise on the job. I’ve learned a ton—it’s been an opportunity to do a little bit of everything. I have gotten to learn from great Operators, but also really get seat time in a lot of different equipment, and work to get better all the time.”
Peck grins when the conversation turns from dirt to water. “I love being on the water. There’s so much to do. There are so many components to actually build something from the ground up, and seeing it start from finish… is just [amazing].” Then a confession: “I didn’t realize that you could have a crane on the water. I was shocked. I thought it would tip over.”
Emmett Moore is another apprentice building a career.
“I’ve been with Granite since March 2022,” he says. “I started by oiling on a crane, later became a deckhand on a tugboat. Now I run the tugboat and operate various equipment like loaders and minis and long-reach excavators.”
The toughest part? The bridge itself. “Since this bridge was built in ’37, the blueprints weren’t exactly accurate,” he says. “Finding random metal throughout the structure, that we didn’t plan on having to rip out—that can kind of set you back.”
The schedule has been a bear, he admits: “We’ve been working 24 hours a day, seven days a week since February or March. I love the money. It’s great to see your pension go up. It’s great to get that big vacation check.”
But the deeper payoff is pride. Moore bought a house a mile from the site and plans to drive across the bridge when it opens.
“It’s a sense of accomplishment to see the final product.”
For the Union, this project is proof that apprenticeships aren’t just pathways—they’re engines. Joyce sees it, too: “It’s very promising to see a lot of the young talent coming up through the apprenticeship program. As we globally have an aging workforce, it’s great to be able to develop the next generation that aids us in staffing the next project. With the partnership continuing to grow, it has helped us strategize for pursuing more projects in the area like the Lafayette Street Bridge, to keep the momentum going.”
Journeypersons: the steady hands and experience
John Robinson knows the Bay City bridges like family. An OE324 journeyman and now foreman, Robinson has been on all three Bay City projects with Granite–Kraemer since 2022, moving from operator on Liberty to foreman on Independence to overseeing demolition on Lafayette.
“This is my first full demo,” he says. “I came over late while we were finishing up Independence. On Lafayette, I’m overseeing operators on land and water, taking over for the original operators.”
His days start at 5:30 a.m. for the foreman’s meeting. Operators roll at 5:30 and work to 6:00 p.m., with long shifts on weekends.
Ask Robinson what makes or breaks a job like this and he doesn’t hesitate: training and mentoring.
“Training is a necessity. Without training, we’d have hacks. We have to teach our apprentices. They’re the ones gonna be paying our bills when we retire.”
He smiles at the outcomes.
“We’ve had quite a few that turned out to be rock stars.”
Hector Costello brings a different kind of veteran calm. A 12-year OE324 member and 15-year operator, he arrived at Lafayette just yesterday and laughs that he’s playing “Uber crane”—helping where needed, sometimes from a barge, sometimes from shore.
“I enjoy the equipment. I like to play with the big toys, and I get paid to play in the sandbox,” he says.
The variety keeps him in the trade: “I bounce around on all the projects and I get to do something different on a regular basis.” Nearing retirement, he’s clear-eyed about what the Union has meant: “I’ve fed my family really well, and stayed steady with work. I really like the brotherhood.”
Greg Keller, a 36-year veteran who “was retired, but came back for this,” is proof that you never stop learning. Running a long-reach excavator blind, he’s working by camera—a first in a long career. The demolition has earned his respect.
“That’s some of the hardest concrete I’ve ever broke,” he says, crediting both age and years underwater for its stubbornness. There’s timber and metal piling to navigate, utilities to respect, and the constant mental chess of doing delicate things with powerful machines. “I rise at the challenge,” Keller shrugs. He likes what he’s seen from the Granite–Kraemer team: “They were geared up and already had barges on the water,” when the project started, he notes. “It made a difference.”
“High-level planning with buy-in from all levels”
Joyce credits the safety record and efficient pace to a culture where plans are made high and refined low. “High-level planning with buy-in from all levels of the team,” he says. “(We) continue to evolve our process as the work progresses, by valuing the voices of our folks doing the work, day in and day out, to help us put the best plan in place.”
That only works if the crews show up with the right mindset.
“(They) come to work every day with a positive attitude and focus to get the job done safely,” he says of OE324 members. “A lot of them have been working long hours on the same activity but continue to recognize the hazards and mitigate them to the rest of their colleagues. Communication has been a big factor, a lot of different backgrounds and skill sets coming together to execute challenging work.”
Why this bridge, why now
Bridges age even when they’re cared for, and Lafayette has lasted for generations. The structure—a pair of spans over the west and east channels, including the east-channel bascule—opened in 1938, replacing a condemned 19th-century bridge and an interim pontoon swing. It was placed on the National Register in 1999 and later delisted after significant rehabilitation. The replacement now underway addresses the aging and failing reliability, while preserving river passage.
What two bridges taught that this third demands
The Granite–Kraemer Bay City playbook is thick now. The work on the Independence and Liberty Bridges made working on and around the Saginaw River build trust with a community that keeps one eye on the water and another on the rush hour. Those lessons matter on a full demolition and rebuild.
They also matter for OE324’s training pipeline. Lafayette’s “two shores and a river” configuration multiplies machine types and work modes: land-based earthwork, cofferdams and sheeting, crane picks from barges, deck pours, mechanical and electrical install for a modern bascule, and the riverine choreography of tug, barge, and crane. It’s precisely the kind of seat-time diversity apprentices like Peck and Moore need to become the next generation of “rock star” operators Robinson talks about.
It’s also a test of the union–contractor partnership. “We always look to gain the support of the locals when we build our projects,” Joyce says. “We are a union contractor, and as such we rely on the local labor force to provide the strong and reliable workforce that is needed.”
Winter is coming (but Operators are ready)
The September morning we walked the site was all sunshine and mirror water. But every person we spoke to brought up the same word: ice.
Work on the bridges has gone year-round, and Robinson has worked several winters here on these projects. “Ice is a huge factor with the bridges and everything else, with the water and everything slippery on top of the steel barges,” Robinson says. “It makes it that much more important to be prepared.”
Heaters in equipment are more than comfort—they’re a control measure. The winter plan includes de-icing, housekeeping, layered PPE, and adjusted picking protocols when deck and access conditions deteriorate. On the water, tug and barge operations get tighter, but equally vital. The tugboats, for instance, will circle the ongoing work in the river to keep ice from forming and exerting pressure on the cofferdam.
Looking ahead to a new bridge
In three summers, Bay City will have a new Lafayette. The leaves will lift smooth and even; the tenders will wave freighters through; tug skippers will time their pushes against the light; kids will count the rivets and try to guess how long the boat will take; truckers will breathe a little easier.
When that day comes, Emmett Moore will drive across and say, “I helped build that.” Rebekah Peck will point out the spot where she learned that cranes can float. John Robinson will tell another apprentice that this is what training does. Hector Costello may be enjoying retirement, content to have pulled a few more levers. And Greg Keller will smile, knowing that the hardest concrete he ever broke gave way—eventually—to an Operator’s patience and a union crew’s plan.
That’s what two shores and one crew can do.
