Sixty feet above the Kansas River, a 121-year-old railroad bridge has found a second life. Reborn as a $20 million gathering place for dining, events and riverfront exploring nearly a decade in the making, the Rock Island Bridge officially opened on April 1.
Kansas City magazine toured the space—which is technically accessed in Missouri but spans the river to Kansas—with CEO Michael Zeller, whose company Flying Truss (the name a play on the famous “flying buttresses” of cathedrals and also the bridge’s trusses), has a 66-year lease on the bridge with Kansas City, Kansas.
Zeller describes the bridge as a “gift from about 200 Kansas Citians to our city,” a collected effort from investors, civic leaders, elected officials, volunteers, lenders, companies and more. “I got to be the leader of the band, but it took a band to get it done,” he says.
The $20 million project was funded 60 percent through private investment, 30 percent from state and local government funding and 10 percent from philanthropic donations to the Unified Government of Wyandotte County and KCK…