La Crosse Applies To Expand Cruise Dock

The Mississippi River city of La Crosse, Wis., has applied to the St. Paul Engineer District to expand the existing cruise ship landing dock at Riverside Park.

Riverside Park currently has a cruise ship landing dock that is about 720 feet long. The proposed landing dock expansion would include the installation of 915 linear feet of driven sheetpile, rock riprap, dredging, earthmoving, grading, paving, landscaping and other site improvements to create and extend the existing landing dockage northward.

The expansion would occur along a region of developed shoreline in Riverside Park that currently consists of an engineered stone revetment along its entire length, along with pavements, lawn, storm sewer and other park amenities such as trash receptacles, lighting and benches.

The work would include dredging 12,000 cubic yards of material to provide a vessel mooring depth of 14 feet. Existing revetment stone would be salvaged and re-used as scour protection along the base of the new sheetpile wall. Some dredged material may be used on the fill (land) side of the sheetpile wall to achieve desired grades.

The need for this project, the city says, is to meet current and future demand for river-related tourism. Current dockage in  La Crosse is not adequate to accommodate anticipated cruise ship needs in a safe and effective manner.