A $600,000 grant to underwrite the design of a pedestrian bridge connecting Chickasha’s “Old Town District” to the Grady County Fairgrounds was approved by the state Transportation Commission.
The proposed site for the overhead bridge is south of the Rock Island Train Depot, east of Chickasha Avenue and North First Street.
The Transportation Alternatives Program grant is derived from the federal Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021 and will be administered by the Oklahoma Department of Transportation. The city must contribute $120,000 in matching funds to secure the federal funds, Chickasha Parks and Recreation Director Spencer Winzenried told Southwest Ledger.
Two engineering consultants from the Oklahoma City regional office of Halff told the City Council that Phase 1 of the proposed railroad pedestrian bridge would be a two-year design project. If it advances to construction, that would be performed in two phases, they indicated.
Chet Hitt, a 1982 Anadarko High School graduate who lives in Apple Valley, California, told the City Council in December 2022 that he planned to invest up to $5 million in various development projects in Chickasha. During his early discussions with local residents, he learned that the subject of a bridge over the railroad tracks to connect the Grady County Fairgrounds with Old Town Chickasha “has been talked about for 18 years.”
Hitt unveiled his concept for the pedestrian bridge during a March 27, 2023, ‘pep rally’ in the restored Rock Island Railroad depot that attracted a host of local residents and several municipal and state officials.
He also took it upon himself to prepare a video of a red iron structural steel pedestrian bridge extending approximately 125 feet over the tracks. The structure would cost approximately $7 million to $10 million, “ballpark figure if I had to guess,” he told the City Council.
The proposed bridge spanning the railroad tracks – coupled with plans for a downtown park, the iconic leg lamp statue near the Rock Island Depot, restoration of the Savoy Hotel building, and the many downtown redevelopment building grants – “are all pieces of a puzzle that’s coming together to make ‘Old Town’ vibrant,” Hitt said.
Hitt said he prepared his proposal for the railroad pedestrian bridge after meeting with Chickasha Community Development Director Rachel Bernish; engineers from the Oklahoma Department of Transportation; Andy Maher, executive director of the Grady County Fairgrounds and Event Center; and the Fair Board.
The proposed bridge “is not a Chet Hitt project,” he insisted. “This is a city project.” He believes the railroad pedestrian bridge would quickly become a tourist attraction.
“We can apply for other grants next year, too,” Hitt told the Ledger. During a conversation with U.S. Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.), Hitt said he learned that “there is grant money available through the Biden administration that’s already been released.” Chickasha could apply for federal grants earmarked “solely for pedestrian bridges and walkways,” Hitt said. “I passed that along” to City Manager Keith Johnson and to Jim Cowan, president of the Chickasha Economic Development Council.
“We have identified 13 other grants that Chickasha could apply for in the future,” the Halff consultants told the council earlier this year.
Fairgrounds hosts hundreds of events The Chickasha fairgrounds sprawls across approximately 65 acres and is the third largest in the state, surpassed only by Oklahoma City’s and Tulsa’s. Its facilities include three indoor equestrian arenas, an outdoor arena, two stall barns, a meeting room, an exhibit hall, and classrooms.
The Grady County Fairgrounds received a facelift in 2000. Since the renovation, the fairgrounds has evolved into a multipurpose event center and a tourism destination point. The fairgrounds logged an estimated 115,000 visitors last year, the council was told and Maher confirmed for Southwest Ledger.
“Over the past two or three years we’ve averaged 325 to 350 events each year,” attracting literally thousands of outof- towners to Chickasha, Maher told the Ledger in April 2023.
The facility hosts myriad events, including rodeos, performance horse shows, dog shows, concerts, roping events, barrel racing, cutting horse and team penning events, livestock shows, numerous local and statewide educational events, sports activities, and the largest antique car swap meet in the nation. The fairgrounds will host a national alpaca show in 2025, Maher said.
“We focus on family and corporate events as well as livestock shows,” he said.
A pedestrian bridge connecting the Grady County Fairgrounds to Chickasha’s historic downtown “would mark a significant step in revitalizing the area,” Maher told the Ledger on Oct. 9. “Linking the fairgrounds to the Old Town district would open up exciting opportunities for our visitors to easily explore downtown shopping, dining and entertainment, enriching the overall experience for tourists. Thank you to the Oklahoma Department of Transportation for their generous support of this project.”
No federal TAP grant for park footbridge The City of Chickasha also applied for a TAP grant to help finance replacement of the pedestrian bridge in Shannon Springs Park – which City Manager Johnson described as “our flagship park” – but that request was turned down.
The bridge is a featured attraction in Chickasha’s Festival of Light during the Christmas holiday; volunteers string 1,094 strands of lights containing 76,580 bulbs, according to former mayor Chris Mosley, who has coordinated that operation for the last eight years.
City Hall requested a $1,427,361 state grant that would have required $285,472 in matching local funds.
The bridge that spans the 4.5-acre lake in the park is 196 feet long and 4.5 feet wide, Winzenried said. The bridge has a wooden deck and wooden handrails but is supported by concrete piers.
Although the bridge is more than 50 years old “and needs to be replaced to be ADA-accessible and to support park visitors for the next generation,” it is “safe to use,” Johnson told the council on Oct. 7.
“The state picks the projects, and obviously felt” the railroad pedestrian bridge “was a good use of their money,” Hitt said.
“We will pursue other funding options for the bridge in Shannon Springs Park,” Johnson said.
A TAP grant was previously approved for a $1.8 million project to build a concrete trail around Shannon Springs Park, but that job was pushed back to 2025.