Several parties will meet Wednesday to discuss the future of the Pere Marquette train bridge in Port Huron. 

The meeting comes more than six years after the Port Huron Yacht Club requested permits to demolish the structure, and about three months since the Army Corps of Engineers proposed a memorandum of agreement between itself, the yacht club and state historic preservation office. 

Yacht club Commodore Jim Goldenbogen said he believes the meeting hosted by the Army Corps is to ensure everyone has their final pitch on the future of the historic movable bridge. 

Marcia Haynes, who is behind the group Friends of the Pere Marquette Train Bridge, said she will also be attending the meeting. 

"Well, we're going to all present our cases and we're going to see how the shoe drops," she said. 

The yacht club applied for the permit in March 2012. It purchased the 3.3-acre parcel at the mouth of the Black River, next to its current property, with plans to remove the bridge and develop the area. 

Goldenbogen stressed there are no set plans for what the yacht club will do with the property if it receives a permit to raze the bridge. 

"That's not in our design to have the bridge there, but we have to wait and see what the final outcome is," he said. "The cart's before the horse until we have a resolution." 

Haynes and the friends group hope to preserve the structure. 

"Because it's a landmark ... and landmarks are landmarks. In saving the Round Island Lighthouse, there's no function to it, it's just a landmark," Haynes said, referencing the historic structure adjacent to Mackinac Island she assisted in preserving in the 1970s. 

Goldenbogen said the yacht club is aware not everyone supports its plan. 

"You've got a very small group push back. And you know if it was public property that would be a different thing, but it's not," he said. 

Goldenbogen hopes the meeting will end with a final memorandum for the yacht club, state preservation office and Corps to sign off on. 

If the three parties sign the agreement, the yacht club would be required to extensively document the train bridge with a detailed written history, maps, photos and drawings of the structure and its surroundings. If and when the state historic preservation office approves the documentation, the Corps would grant the yacht club a demolition permit.

Officials have said the alternatives to demolition include doing nothing, preserving the site using federal criteria, moving the bridge to another location and the recommended documentation option.

Haynes said the group is glad to be able to have a chance to voice their argument to save the bridge. 

"So this is the last hurrah," she said. 

Colette Luff, regulatory project manager with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers-Detroit District said in an email no decision on the permit application has been made. 

"The primary purpose of the meeting is to consult on the feasibility of the bridge preservation alternative. We do not know what the outcome of the meeting will be," she said in an email. 


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