Most of today’s motorists zipping along Washington Street between White River State Park and the Indianapolis Zoo near downtown Indianapolis probably don’t give the history of that roadway a second thought. More than likely, they naively believe the 834-foot-long structure and one-half mile approach for a 6-lane expressway-type facility with controlled access has always been there. Yet that bustling patch of roadway has only existed for just about 30 years, thanks to American Structurepoint.

This massive, $11 million, Indiana Department of Transportation project of the early to mid-1980s represented a big step in the evolution of Indianapolis as a destination city. Relocating Washington Street served two purposes: ensuring the major thoroughfare would not cut through the center of the fledgling White River State Park project and creating better land use for building the new home of the Indianapolis Zoo, which opened in 1988. American Structurepoint won the contract to design the relocated road and bridge and provided the project’s environmental services. Our design featured one of the firsts in bridge construction in Indiana—two 3-span continuous steel box girder units on hammerhead piers.

Rick Conner’s take: Company President and COO Rick Conner terms the project “a huge win for us. This was a high-profile project where we earned a reputation for speed, accuracy, and for ‘making things go’! It also helped that we had done more bridges over White River than any other company in town.”

Flashback topics sought:  Do you have a story from our company’s history you’d like to share? Just email either Rosemarie Kelly or Krista Lawson, and we’ll track down the details for a future issue.