May 2, 2017 – West Bend, WI – It’s expected to be a couple of days yet before Steve Awve removes the bridge in downtown West Bend. For the past week Awve has been removing the floor of the bridge to help reduce the weight.
The crane, currently on site, will be used to lift the bridge to the east side of the river.
Awve secured the bid of $24,500 for West Bend 
Crane, Inc. to remove the bridge.
Awve was the one who moved the gazebo from Old Settler’s Park to the former Schwai’s / Bibingers in Cedar Creek. That relocation was full of excitement…. including low-hanging phone lines and bees.
Awve’s work also has ties to the rebuild of Timmer’s Restaurant on Big Cedar Lake and he was the guy Matt Prescott hired to drop the second-floor balcony and return the downtown West Bend Theatre to its original layout.
The West Bend Business Improvement District is on the hook to cover the bridge removal. The BID has to be breathing a sigh of relief as the initial estimate to demolish the bridge included a surety of $75,000.
The next bid on the project was from a company out of Athens, WI. That was for $96,520.
I, for one, will be able to sleep at night after they finish this project!
It’s been worrying me, ever since they left the down town area go into disrepair! ! It always amazes me,when I hear about the restoration of downtown! The Mayor, Mr Torinus, Steven Hutchins and many others, try to tell me how great the down town is going to be! Why didn’t it always stay great? Their ideas of improvements seem to be very shallow in nature!
Like putting lipstick on a pig! I’m quite surprised they have not put more low income and social services into the area! That would help this area!
The true heroes of the downtown area are the small business owners and the great restaurants and pubs! They try to survive in an area that an outsider doesn’t know how to get to!