Xiangzhou District, Zhuhai

Construction of the replacement Haiyan Bridge connecting Yeli Island and Central Lovers Avenue in Wanzaisha of Xiangzhou is open for public bidding on the official website of the Zhuhai Construction Engineering Exchange Center.

The bridge will be the second cross-water channel after the Xinyue Bridge which is opened to vehicular traffic.

Rendering of New Haiyan Bridge [Photo courtesy Zhuhai Daily]

The total length of the project will be 707 m, with a bridge section of 583 m. With innovative engineering, it will be the first unlocking bridge in the Pearl River Delta and the sixth in the country, according to an official from Zhuhai Gree Real Estate, the construction company. An unlockable steel box girder bridge span has been designed to allow sand dredging boats to pass through. This will add yet another eye-catching site along Lovers Avenue.

Yeli Island and Central Lovers Avenue are important parts of Xianglu Bay’s coastal environmental regulatory project. Yeli is to become an island paradise featuring the Grand Theater (an opera house), seafront eco-square, yacht service center, and roundabout cycling lane, according to a planning official. 

The original Haiyan Bridge is closed for safety reasons. Motor vehicles and pedestrians now enter and exit Yeli Island via Xinyue Bridge until New Year’s Day. 

The new Haiyan Bridge connecting Beili Road on the island can function as the emergency evacuation channel for both the island and opera house, and a route for buses as well as being a slow-traffic path for locals to get in and out of the venue. 

However, the bridge will serve only pedestrians and buses. It is to be open to all motor vehicles only in case of emergency when the bi-directional four-lane bridge will wholly open for urgent evacuation.