$159,000 ($ in  dollars) federal grant and $80,000 ($ in  dollars) in private contributions to plan the bridge, and by June 2011 was considering three designs by architect Miguel Rosales: A traditional suspension bridge, a Fink truss bridge, and a cable-stayed bridge with curving beams overhead.

Cleveland Metroparks took over the bridge planning effort in the fall of 2014. Not using the bridge design work previously conducted by the Cuyahoga County Planning Commission, Metroparks began soliciting new designs for the  pedestrian and bicycle bridge over the Old Ship Channel. By October 2014, four bridge design teams had been selected as finalists: Columbus-based DLZ/Paris-based RFR Engineers; Elyria-based KS Associates/Parsons Brinckerhoff; Pittsburgh-based Michael Baker International/Skip Smallridge; Miguel Rosales/Schlaich Bergermann Partner/Osborn Engineering. By June 2015, the Rosales/Schlaich Bergermann/Osborn EngineeringThe S-55 was deemed to be the first completely successful design for helicopter entrepreneur Igor Sikorsky, the type first entering service with all three United States services in the early 1950s Korean War years and going into mass production, seeing service with vast number of countries worldwide.