Jim Redden | Portland Tribune

Developers tried to incorporate SouthSide Works into the existing neighborhood when it was built. Guy Wathen | Trib Total MediaConstruction of the replacement Lafayette Street pedestrian bridge is focusing attention on a new style of potential light rail-related growth — Employment Transit Oriented Development, or E-TOD, as planners call it.

Last Thursday morning, a large crane lifted a 70-ton steel walkway more than 50 feet into the air near Southeast Rhine Street and Southeast 17th Avenue in the Brooklyn neighborhood. The 184-foot collection of plates and girders hung in the air for 15 minutes as the crane rotated 180 degrees, then gently lowered it onto the top of two 42-foot-high steel towers on either side the Union Pacific railroad line.

Workers from Lorenz Bruun Construction rose on smaller lifts to nudge the span into place before fastening the large structures together. Company employees watched and took pictures from the rooftop balcony of their headquarters building, coincidentally located at the east end of the project. A light drizzle began falling as this phase of the job was finished. Read more