By MARQUIS JONES

(WARRENSBURG, Mo., digitalBURG) – Nearly 70 people came to the first half of an open house Thursday to review three designs for the reconstruction of the Maguire Street bridge over U.S. 50.

The designs represent the first phase of a six-phase project to improve the Maguire Street corridor. City officials anticipate all six phases taking 20 years to complete.

The city hired HDR Engineering to complete preliminary designs for the project and had representatives on hand Thursday to discuss the three designs for phase 1.

Following Thursday’s presentation, HDR will analyze traffic and evaluate the right of way needs and costs and will work with the Missouri Department of Transportation in planning the reconstruction of the bridge, which was built in 1948.

There are no estimated costs yet on entire project. HDR plans to have an estimated cost by April.

“It’s hard to choose between the three concepts, but all of them will have impact on traffic,” said Marshall Abney, senior vice president of Central Bank, located 401 N. Maguire St.

Matthew Lue, of Warrensburg, viewed each concept during the meeting.

“The businesses will be affected on Maguire, but I like each concept presented,” he said.

Concept one is a tight diamond, which is a simple four-lane intersection like the current bridge.

“The superstructure is really shallow and needs to be raised if this concept structure is voted,” said Cory Imoff, the project manager. “Advantages to this concept matches the existing bridge and is easy to construct.”

Matt Spencer, of HDR, presented concept two with a single point construction, meaning traffic is controlled by a single traffic light on the bridge.

“This concept reduces parcel impacts and has one light signal,” Spencer said.

Concept three is a diverging diamond, which has been used in Kansas City and Springfield, Missouri.

“Raising the bridge for this one works out well because we have done it before with Kansas City and Springfield,” said Simon Sun, of HDR.

The diverging diamond crisscrosses traffic across two parallel bridges.

“Something people see quite a bit is the diverging diamond and it will have pedestrian access and safety (improvements),” Imoff said. “The only disadvantage will be driver familiarity.”