NEWBURYPORT — For the first time since 2018, motorists last week crossed the Middle Street Bridge connecting the city with neighboring West Newbury last week, according to officials.
To mark the milestone, officials on both sides of the Upper Artichoke Reservoir – which the bridge spans – will be celebrating with a ribbon-cutting ceremony next Friday at 11 a.m. It was soft opened last week after a final inspection on Sept. 22.
“The bridge is really a success story in terms of intermunicipal collaboration and cooperation,” West Newbury Town Manager Sean Fitzgerald said.
The bridge was closed in July 2018 after a failure in the spandrel wall. Known in West Newbury as the Plummer Spring Road Bridge, it straddles the border between the communities. Both municipalities share a legal obligation to maintain and repair the structure.
The ribbon-cutting ceremony will be held following the installation of a specialized guardrail that had been the final holdup on the project.
“The project was scheduled to be completed by November, but they were hoping they could get it done a little sooner,” Fitzgerald said. “But, I certainly appreciate everybody’s patience.”
Efforts to secure funding to rebuild the bridge had been underway for six years.
In June 2025, town and city officials, including former Town Manager Angus Jennings, Newburyport Mayor Sean Reardon and Newburyport City Council President Ed Cameron, met with Sen. Bruce Tarr of Gloucester and a representative from the state Department of Transportation to work out an intermunicipal agreement between the communities.
During its July 22, 2024, meeting, the Newburyport City Council voted unanimously to approve an agreement that stipulated each community will share equally in the project’s costs.
The project went out to bid the following month and was awarded to Lowell-based S&R Corporation. Construction then started in spring 2025.
The approximately total cost of the project was $3.66 million.
Both communities received grants to help to offset the project’s cost.
Newburyport received two Massachusetts Department of Transportation small bridge program grants in 2018 totaling $293,952, according to the draft agreement. In 2024, Newburyport was awarded a third small bridge grant of $750,000.
West Newbury was awarded a $1 million MassWorks grant in late 2023 and a $750,000 small bridge grant in early 2024.
In a joint statement from Newburyport and West Newbury sent out Thursday, Fitzgerald thanked Jennings for his efforts while town manager.
“I was fortunate to inherit a fully funded and substantially completed project thanks to the leadership and dedication of former Town Manager Angus Jennings, whose hard work over many years helped make this project a reality,” Fitzgerald said, in the statement. “Today we celebrate not only a new bridge, but the strong partnership between our communities and everyone who contributed to its success.”
Reardon called the bridge a great example of what can be accomplished when neighboring communities work together.
“This project improves safety, strengthens connectivity, and represents a lasting investment in our residents and our region,” Reardon said in the statement. “We are proud to celebrate this achievement and grateful to all who helped bring it to completion.”
During a separate interview, Fitzgerald said while many residents take main thoroughfares, the bridge is still a strategic asset to improve safety.
“It strengthens a lot of the interconnection between Newburyport and West Newbury, and it certainly helps our first responders and our residents just have an area where they can go in the event that there is an emergency,” Fitzgerald said. “Having redundant arterial roadways to and through the community is always critical in terms of public safety.”
Both communities extended their appreciation to municipal staff, project engineers, contractors, elected officials, and funding partners whose dedication made this project possible, with special recognition extended to Tarr, state Rep. Dawne Shand, and state Rep. Adrianne Ramos for “their continued advocacy and support of infrastructure investments throughout the region.”