The New Brooks Bridge Can't Be Finished Until the Old One Is Cut Apart

In September, crews finished placing the concrete deck on the new westbound Brooks Bridge over Santa Rosa Sound, and the Florida Department of Transportation called it a major milestone. FDOT's project page still lists the replacement's estimated completion as Spring 2029. The gap between those two dates comes from how this bridge gets built. It goes up in two halves, and the second half needs ground the old bridge still occupies.

That explains most of what anyone crossing U.S. 98 between downtown Fort Walton Beach and Okaloosa Island will see over the next two-plus years. Each stage has to wait for the one before it.

174 piles in, 174 still to go

In late May, FDOT's construction engineering inspection lead for the project, Ed Hudec, briefed the Greater Fort Walton Beach Chamber of Commerce board. Get The Coast reported his count: crews had driven 174 of the 348 piles the bridge needs, and the rest will go in after the existing structure is demolished.

Half the piles are in. The other half have to wait until the 1966 bridge is out of the way. Foundation work on the eastbound span is set to continue during demolition, and demolition itself is expected to take six to nine months, with crews saw-cutting the old structure into pieces and barging them upriver.

The project is two separate bridges, each about 65 feet wide and set 10 feet apart. The westbound structure, the one with the finished deck, was built beside the old span. Its eastbound twin goes where the old bridge stands. So the poured deck marks roughly the halfway point of the overall job. Moving traffic off the old bridge comes before any demolition can start.

The westbound bridge is a good way along. By the spring, its girders had been set and post-tensioning was underway. Hudec also said roadwork was 70% to 75% complete at the time. The main-channel girders went in overnight using ringer cranes brought by barge from Boh Brothers in New Orleans. That placement took a month and finished ahead of schedule.

The order of operations

FDOT's September announcement listed what still sits between the poured deck and the first cars: the remaining bridge components, the roadway connections, and barrier walls, drainage, lighting and other supporting features. After that, the sequence Hudec described in June runs like this:

1. Westbound traffic moves from the existing bridge onto the new structure.
2. Eastbound traffic follows six to eight weeks later, so all of U.S. 98 is riding on the new span.
3. Demolition of the existing Brooks Bridge begins, expected to take six to nine months, while foundation work continues on the eastbound span.
4. Crews drive the remaining piles after the old bridge comes down and complete the second structure.
5. The project wraps up in early 2029.

In June, Hudec put the westbound shift in September or October and had all traffic on the new bridge by year-end. Under that plan, demolition would start in early January. Those months were a forecast. Each step depends on the one before it, so if the traffic shift moves, demolition moves with it. The fixed points are the order of the steps and the 2029 finish, more than any one month.

For a daily driver, the traffic shift is the change you'll notice first. You'll be on new pavement before the project is anywhere near done, and the old bridge you've driven for years becomes a work zone next to you.

Where the extra year came from

Hudec told the Chamber board that the finish date had moved about a year later than the timeline presented two years earlier. As recently as January 2025, Get The Coast was reporting a summer 2027 estimate.

His breakdown is more specific than "construction delays." The contract grew from 1,810 days to 2,109, which is about 300 days. Of those, 246 were holiday and weather days the original contract hadn't credited. A small number of change orders account for the rest.

He also said the internal schedule shows late 2028. FDOT presents early 2029 publicly to leave room for more holidays and weather between now and then. The Spring 2029 date on FDOT's site already includes that buffer.

The $171 million design-build contract went to Superior Construction, with WSP as the bridge designer. Site demolition started in 2022 and preliminary construction in 2023. On that timeline, the work stretches across roughly seven calendar years from the first demolition to the finish.

Old bridge, new bridge

Hudec said the current span is the lowest bridge on the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway between Fort Walton Beach and New Orleans. Here's how the two compare:

The extra 15 feet of clearance and roughly 800 feet of added length are why the approach on the Fort Walton Beach side has to rise. In the spring, crews built a mechanically stabilized earth wall at the U.S. 98 approach to lift the travel lanes up to the taller bridge.

The longer life span comes from the post-tensioning method. "What you really got is a simplified suspension bridge, in effect," Hudec told the Chamber board, according to Get The Coast. He compared the design to the Golden Gate Bridge and said the post-tensioning reduces vibration on the substructure over time, adding about 25 years to a typical bridge's life.

Each new bridge also carries 10-foot inside and outside shoulders and a 12-foot shared-use path for people on foot and bikes, with sun shade structures, benches, and walkouts with pictorials about local sea life. The decorative bridge lighting is calibrated to avoid disturbing sea turtle nesting areas. On the island end, FDOT's project page says the new bridge will extend past the Santa Rosa Boulevard intersection and remove the traffic signal there. Intersection work runs from Perry Avenue to Pier Road.

What has already changed on the ground

The project has been reshaping both ends of the bridge for four years. In August 2022, the Waffle House and the Tropical Waves beach store on Okaloosa Island were demolished as advance work. On the downtown side, the right-of-way took a four-unit building at Oak Breeze Apartments, Pat's Bait & Tackle, Bamboo's Jamaican Restaurant, Diva Nails & Spa and the old Doghouse Surf Shop building. It also took part of the frontage at Props Brewery in the Shoppes at Paradise Pointe.

Some changes have gone the other way. In May, the City of Fort Walton Beach announced that Brooks Street beneath the bridge had reopened to two-way traffic from Perry Avenue east to Florida Blanca Place. The city also warned that nighttime lane closures could still happen Sunday through Thursday, 9 p.m. to 5:30 a.m. As the project moves into the traffic-shift and demolition stages, late-night drivers should plan around that window.

The 348-pile count explains why the work zone will stay put for a while. Half of those piles wait on demolition of the old bridge, and demolition alone is expected to run six to nine months. Expect cranes, barriers and lane shifts along the downtown waterfront through every stage on the list above.

A reason to be downtown this month anyway

A few blocks from the approach, the city's holiday calendar is set. The Downtown Fort Walton Beach Holiday Market & Light Up the Night Tree Lighting runs Saturday, Nov. 28, 2026, from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. at the Fort Walton Beach Landing, 139 Brooks St. SE. The Fort Walton Beach Community Chorus will carol during the countdown, and the tree lights at 5:30 p.m. If you come in over U.S. 98 from the island, the Landing sits right beside the stretch of Brooks Street the bridge work runs through, which also makes it a good spot to see how far the new span has come.

If you own a home or condo on either end of the Brooks Bridge and are wondering how this long construction schedule factors into your plans to sell, rent or stay, the team at Coastal Heritage Realty is glad to talk it through with you. Schedule Your Complimentary Consultation.