St. Cloud celebrates bridge opening

With the long-awaited re-opening of the bridge on Division Street, operations in St Cloud can now return to normal.

As of Thursday Oct. 29, the new Granite City Crossing opened for business and the bridge made itself useful with the expected traffic of the coming holiday season.

The construction that had impacted the city, most prominently on Highway 23, has been another obstacle that added to the frustration of many St. Cloud locals over the past year.

Another factor that has been on the minds of residents was the naming of the bridge.

The Desoto Bridge, built in 1958 in St. Cloud, was named after Hernando de Soto, the first European to take credit for seeing the Mississippi River on May 8, 1541.

With the bridge opening on Thursday, also came a celebration within the community.

The Green Mill and Kelly Inn of St. Cloud hosted Division Revision 2009 outside their premises in the conjoined parking lots.

“People will always call the bridge the Division Street Bridge or whatever they used to, but I think it’s a fine name and I’m glad the community had the opportunity to vote on it,” said Jen Schlecht, a participator for Green Mill at the festival.

Due to the weather conditions of the opening day, the festival had to be moved indoors.

The man behind the celebration was Green Mill’s general manager Charlie Spanier.

“We had 30 thousand square feet out in the parking lot and had to compress it to a roughly 5,000 for the reception in the ballroom, and the pool area gave us 2,500 square feet for the inflatables so obviously the space is a big downer. It would’ve been nice to be outside, especially for the fireworks,” Spanier said.

Despite the change of venue, the fireworks did end up making their appearance, being able to operate in rain and snow.

“It was incredible the amount of volunteers and every downtown business that joined in on the effort to make this happen. We partnered with the Downtown Council, so it’s not just a Green Mill party, it’s a community event,” Spanier said. “The first time we had a meeting I thought there was going to be maybe six or seven people here, but nineteen people showed up.”

The event was aimed at being family-friendly and visitors dressed up in a range of costumes from fairies to lizards.

Attendees were able to enter into the Halloween costume contest, enjoy the sound of local bands, and grab a bite to eat.