A high-profile commission but one that certainly comes with some heavy baggage, the Star Tribune is reporting that the hunt is on for a designer to develop the plans for a bridge to replace the one that collapsed in the Twin Cities at the first of the month. While the city wants to get a new one built as soon as they possibly can, both to help move on from the tragedy, as well as rebuilding a needed high-volume traffic corridor, there are a handful of people trying to get a "name" architect involved (notably Santiago Calatrava). The city, well, they'd be more than happy to get in talks with someone, but not if it means slowing the process down any.

Calatrava has expressed interest in the project and sent his son, who works in his firm, to see the site in Minneapolis, according to a spokeswoman.

An [employee of Peter Kitchak, the lead in trying to get a big name] talked with four teams vying for the bridge project -- a fifth, KTM Constructors, dropped out of the running over the weekend. The teams, Kitchak said, have indicated "lukewarm" support for the idea of bringing Calatrava on board.

The firms said that they already have designers and that it would be hard to switch with a deadline for proposals coming in mid-September.