Paradise Island Bridge

The Paradise Island East Bridge connecting Paradise Island to Nassau, Bahamas recently had some serious concrete refurbishment repairs. This Bridge to Paradise’s full makeover took 12 months to complete costing $5.6M, which included repairs to girders, piers, pier caps, abutments, railings and columns restoring the roadway to its former glory.

Paradise Island, located just off the shore of Nassau, Bahamas, is a tourist attraction best known for housing the famous resort Atlantis where people come from far and wide to take a break from their stressful lives. The 685 acre island is connected to the island of New Providence by two bridges that go across the Nassau Harbor, which were designed by HNTB. The 36 feet wide and 1,560 feet long roadway carries two lanes of traffic and consists of 15 concrete spans and 3 high elevation main channel spans.  Opened in 1967, the Paradise Island East Bridge is the oldest of the two bridges and with millions of tourists and residents crossing the bridge every year, it was about time for a repair to be executed.

With the tropical saltwater environment in the Bahamas, it had taken a toll on the 50-year-old bridge over time. The reinforced concrete superstructure and  substructure began to corrode due to the warm weather and the seawater, which led to the spalling and cracking of various structural elements maintaining the bridge’s framework.

With the 2011 AASHTO Manual for Bridge Evaluation, they found that the overall structure was in good condition but there were numerous components of the bridge that were exhibiting various levels of deterioration due to the corrosion of the embedded steel reinforcement, which required restoration and resulted in regular maintenance.

The Bridge Authority weighed their options and found that to replace the bridge it would cost around $40-50M while repairing the existing structure would cost about 10-15% of the replacement cost. They essentially went forward with the restoration option and began their work in March of 2016.  

With the bulk of the work being concrete repair on the columns, piers, beams and supports, the contractors decided to use the “form and pour” technique with Sikacrete 211 SCC Plus and Armatec 110 and for some of the smaller concrete repairs, the crew once again used Armatec 110 and SikaTop 123 Plus.  With all the concrete repairs completed, some of the more critical structures with Sika FerroGard 903 and finished with the structure was then coated with SikaGard 670 W and SikaTop 144 to finish the job.  

The Paradise Island East Bridge restoration project was a success being completed on time and at a fraction of what it would have cost to replace the bridge. The “Bridge to Paradise” will live on for another 25 years.