THE COASTAL BEND MAGAZINE • March/April 2018 31 TheCoastalBend.com above: New bridge route in yellow, current route dotted. below: The SEAtown is a proposed plan for SEA District, located north of I-37 to the ship channel. A group of planners is requesting a contract from the City to create a design centered on a new canal that would run along the current bridge route. top: The first Nueces County Courthouse in 1887, located at the corner of Mesquite and Beldon Streets. middle: The 1914 Nueces County Courthouse illustrated for a postcard shortly after its opening. New developers aspire to restore the protected, Texas historical building, to its original grandeur as a hotel or multi-use complex. above left: Historical marker outside the dilapi- dated courthouse, closed for 41 years. right: Inside and outside the 1914 courthouse, named one of the most haunted places in Texas. fan pattern that suspend the bridge deck. The largest (based on span, the distance between main towers) such bridge in the world connects the Russian mainland to a sparsely inhabited island off its Pacific coast, not far from the North Korean border. The largest cable-stayed bridge in the United States, the Greenville Bridge, connects Arkansas and Mississippi over the Mississippi River, and opened in 2010. Its span length is 1,378 feet and its towers are 425 feet tall. The span of the new Harbor Bridge will be 1,661 feet and its towers will soar 538 feet above the city and the port—almost twelve stories taller than the One Shoreline Plaza South Tower. Clear- ance under the new bridge will be 205 feet compared to 138 feet under the current bridge, a six-story increase to the maximum height of passing ships.