The 600-ton Swing Span Bridge over the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway provided primary access to the $850 million, 2300-acre Barefoot Resort & Golf Club in North Myrtle Beach, SC. The resort features four signature, championship golf courses (Pete Dye, Greg Norman, Tom Fazio, and Davis Love III), a complete Town Center retail and office district, several resort hotels, numerous restaurants, multi-family housing, private residential tracts, and a 150-slip marina. Originally designed in 1936 and used over the Albemarle Sound in North Carolina, the bridge was purchased by the Barefoot Resort development group in 1987. BEHKO provided the engineering needed to successfully relocate the historic bridge to its new home at Barefoot Landing.
Structural engineering and design took more than two years and involved close coordination with the roadway and site engineering, electrical system upgrades and traffic control system plans. Waterway protection systems were designed to guard the structure from an impact of the largest vessel authorized to use the waterway, without damage to the piling supports. Clearances and channel widths were coordinated closely with the U.S. Coast Guard and commercial operators who pass through the site.
Moving the bridge from North Carolina was a monumental task. The entire bridge superstructure was transported on a 400 ft. long train of barges down the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway to North Myrtle Beach, approximately 300 nautical miles. Once at the site, a specially designed hydraulic jacking system was used to lift the structure above the center pedestal. Once the structure was in place, the electrical systems were installed, involving the installation of submarine cables under the waterway.
Today, the bridge serves over 12,000 residents of North Myrtle Beach daily. Following the successful completion of the bridge relocation, BEHKO provided architectural and structural engineering for the Barefoot Landing Golf Clubhouse, Hotel, and several other businesses in the expansive development.
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