Mayor Michelle Wu’s administration is looking to hire a project manager to oversee the long-delayed replacement of the Long Island Bridge, which connected Boston to a 35-acre addiction recovery campus before it abruptly closed in 2014.
Boston’s public works department is seeking an outside manager to provide “construction oversight and contract assistance services for the bridge superstructure replacement project,” Wu’s office said Thursday.
Applications are due by Oct. 20 and city officials will select a team before year’s end, Wu’s office said.
“Families around the city and region deserve access to a comprehensive network of care as so many experience substance use and mental health challenges,” Wu said in a statement. “I’m excited to bring on a project management team to begin taking action in rebuilding a public health campus and coordinate with provider partners to bring these critical services online as quickly as possible.”
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Chris Osgood, Wu’s senior adviser for infrastructure, said last month that the city hopes to have received the permits needed to begin construction by the end of the year. The bridge, which officials in Quincy are fighting to block, would reopen within four years.
Last month, state officials issued a key permit for the city to rebuild the bridge, which closed over concerns about its structural stability.
The permit, known as a Chapter 91 license, evaluates a project’s impact on public access to coastlines and waterways. Next steps include a review by the state’s Office of Coastal Zone Management and a bridge permit from the US Coast Guard.
Wu’s office said the Coast Guard has issued favorable preliminary determinations on the navigational and historic preservation aspects of the design.
“This new campus will be a hub for further innovation and create a supportive and stable environment for long-term recovery for generations of people,” Dr. Bisola Ojikutu, executive director of the Boston Public Health Commission, said in a statement.
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The prospect of a new bridge has drawn sharp opposition in Quincy, where residents say the project could increase traffic through the Squantum neighborhood, harm the local environment, and impact quality of life. Over the summer, a pair of Quincy officials asked the state’s congressional delegation to intervene, citing their concerns over the project, according to The Patriot Ledger.
The dispute triggered a protracted legal clash between Quincy and Boston. Last year, the state’s highest court ruled that the state’s approval for Boston’s plan takes precedence over a rejection by the Quincy Conservation Commission.
The city has $38 million earmarked in its capital budget to rehabilitate the existing buildings on the island and an additional $81 million to rebuild the bridge.
Plans call for a 3,300-foot bridge that will be supported by the existing piers. There would be two lanes for cars, one in each direction, with sidewalks and lighting “very similar to the previous bridge,” according to city authorities. The new design also accounts for sea level rise, according to the Wu administration.
Each section of the bridge is expected to be built on land and floated into place. The structure would preserve horizontal clearance for boats and slightly increase the vertical clearance, officials said.
Central to the friction between Boston and Quincy is simple geography. The bridge would connect Long Island with Moon Island, which is owned by Boston but falls within the municipal boundaries of Quincy at its northern tip. In order to access the islands by land, vehicles would have to pass through Squantum, a residential neighborhood in Quincy.
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Public health officials say rebuilding the recovery campus is crucial to combat the opioid and mental health crises in the Mass. and Cass. area of Boston, which has become increasingly violent amid rampant drug use and exploitation.
In August, Wu sounded what she called “a new level of public safety alarm” for the area after a series of violent events in July.
Material from prior Globe stories was used in this report.
Travis Andersen can be reached at travis.andersen@globe.com.