After more than 70 years along the Scioto River, the limestone railing had all but lost its battle with the elements.

Steel pins and anchors that held the railing together slowly rusted through. Concrete sections, installed as a cheap fix for crumbling portions, didn’t match the weathered Indiana limestone.

“Besides the weight of the thing, you probably could have kicked it into the river if you wanted to,” said Darren Meyer, a senior associate at MSI Design’s Columbus office.

But now the railing and its balusters have been restored as part of a $44 million plan to link the Arena District and W. Main Street via a riverside park.

The project, called the Scioto Mile, will incorporate the John W. Galbreath Bicentennial Park and Battelle Riverfront Park. It’s scheduled to open in time for the city’s bicentennial in 2012, and it eventually could connect to the new Scioto Audubon Metro Park a little farther south along the river, near the Brewery District.

“The riverfront is a natural asset for Downtown that has been underused for years,” said Amy Taylor, spokeswoman for the Columbus Downtown Development Corp.

“It’s going to be a regional attraction and amenity and draw people to a section of Downtown that they haven’t been to in a long time.”

For the railing, the work meant a thorough examination by Schooley Caldwell Associates, the Columbus architects whose experts disassembled part of the balustrade to figure out how it was put together.

It’s a difficult procedure, because it’s right on the floodwall,” said Robert K. Smith, a principal at Schooley Caldwell. Rigging held a platform over the river during the project, and workers wore life vests in case they fell into the water.

About two-thirds of the original balustrade could be salvaged, Smith said. Reconstruction began behind the Ohio Supreme Court building, across the river from COSI Columbus.

Planners imported new limestone from Indiana to replace portions that could not be repaired. Crews sandblasted and stained the new stone to imitate weathering on the original pieces. The concrete was removed.

Work continues, but Meyer said the project is at least 90 percent complete.

The new railing will include metal pieces between the balusters to prevent anything or anyone from slipping through the space and ending up in the river.

“We’re sort of walking a fine line,” Meyer said. “We want to give it a face-lift, but we want to keep the patina of age — keep it looking like the historic structure that it is.”

dhendricks @dispatch.com

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