Bellevue will host an open house from 5-7 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 15 to discuss construction of a new bridge that will replace an aging culvert on Coal Creek Parkway, between Forest Drive Southeast and Southeast 60th Street.

The open house will be held at Bellevue City Hall, 450 110th Ave. NE., room 1E-108.

The Coal Creek Culvert Replacement project, set to start in April 2013, will protect the roadway, improve public safety, provide a new pedestrian walkway, and improve fish passage. It also will require long-term lane closures on the parkway in 2013 and 2014.

An existing nine-foot-diameter Coal Creek culvert is deteriorating and needs to be replaced to keep the parkway safe for the nearly 28,000 commuters that use this route each day. The project also includes construction of a separate pedestrian pathway that will run underneath the bridge and connect the Coal Creek trail, giving pedestrians and hikers a safe way to cross the parkway; and creek restoration to improve salmon migration.

Relocation of complex utilities, such as fiber optic cables, a natural gas main and high-pressure fuel pipe lines, requires the project to be done in two phases. During each phase, Coal Creek Parkway will be reduced to one lane in each direction through the project area, between Forest Drive Southeast and SE 60th St. from April through November in 2013 and again in 2014.

All lanes are planned to be open for about four months during the winter of 2013-2014, before construction resumes in spring 2014. Completion of the project is expected in November 2014.