For a project that is only a few years old, the East Winterberry replacement effort has a long and storied past — city councilors decided in 2005 to replace the bridge when it was obvious that it had outlived its lifespan, but after Hurricane Wilma, officials had to shut the bridge to commercial traffic.

The Florida Department of Transportation downgraded its status from "functionally obsolete" to "structurally deficient" after the storm removed enough embankment material to compromise the integrity of the structure.

After determining that its replacement was an emergency, the city found itself tangled in a permitting fiasco with the U.S. Coast Guard, which was looking at several changes to the bridge that the city and many residents loudly protested. Among the agency's suggestions were to raise the bridge six inches, possibly rendering adjacent homes inaccessible, removing the bridge or doing an in kind replacement, an option that city officials had originally pushed for and eventually achieved.

The Coast Guard approved the permit application almost a year after other agencies, delaying the project by over a year and driving up the cost by $1.5 million.

• Budget? $5.5 million

• On budget? It depends. The delay in starting the project drove the cost up from $4 million, but city officials have yet to spend any of the funds that are now allocated to the replacement.

• Completion date? According to Tim Pinter, city project engineer, the city has no scheduled completion date but would like to be finished by hurricane season 2008.

• On schedule? No, the project should have been completed by this winter, but the permitting delay threw off the entire schedule. Pinter said they will receive a schedule for the city's approval from whichever contractor it hires.

• What are they doing now? "Nothing," Pinter said. The city is sitting on the project temporarily and has delayed the bid date until April 26.

• What will they do next? Award a contract to the lowest bidder, which will probably be done at the May 7 city council meeting.

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