After a six-hour session Thursday, the design jury voted, 21-6, to retain the existing Peace Bridge and build "an iconic bridge."

The recommendation is significant because the Peace Bridge Authority has said it will rely heavily on the jury's advice. Some people's hopes of a six-lane replacement bridge, though, are fading.

Yet this doesn't mean an identical companion is on the horizon.

"The one message I hope people don't get is we're getting a twin span," said Jeff Belt, a juror who voted for a companion span. "I don't believe we'll be getting a twin span. I do believe we will build a great and iconic crossing. Everybody in the room wants to build a great international gateway."

While the group spearheading the bridge expansion - composed of officials from the Peace Bridge Authority, City of Buffalo and Town of Fort Erie, Ont. - still makes the decisions, the officials opted for a design jury as a way to win public acceptance for whatever solution is chosen.

Recommending a companion span or a replacement bridge was the jury's first task.

Next, the jury will discuss what kind of bridge to recommend: a suspension, cable-stayed, steel arch or concrete, segmental span.

Later, the jury could recommend how many lanes a companion span should have and how wide it should be, among other design issues.

The jury - comprised of eight Canadians and eight Americans as civic members and six technical members from each country - has studied 33 companion and replacement concepts.

All the concepts work with any of the U.S. plaza configurations and locations under consideration, said Robert G. Shibley, who also co-chairs the jury.

Three of the eight civic members appointed to the jury by Mayor Anthony M. Masiello voted for a companion span, as did both of his technical representatives.

"I really feel the existing bridge is durable, and there's no sense in knocking it down," said Dominic J. Bonifacio, a Niagara District Common Council member and jury member.

The other American civic jurors voting for a companion span were Belt and Shibley, who is also director of the Urban Design Project at the University at Buffalo's School of Architecture and Planning.

Public Works Commissioner Joseph N. Giambra and city planner David J. DiSalvo, the mayor's technical appointees, also voted for a companion span.

All of the Canadians, except for one who missed the meeting, voted for a companion span.

Five civic members appointed by Masiello voted for a replacement bridge, as did a state employee who sits on the jury as a technical member.

"I just felt we couldn't do justice to the old bridge by putting something next to it that would be totally different," said Martha Bliss, a retired nurse who lives on Massachusetts Avenue.

"It was a disappointment," Bliss said of the vote. "But I'm looking forward, not looking back. I just hope the final bridge will do us all justice."

The other Masiello appointees voting for a replacement bridge were Olga Karman, a Spanish professor and community affairs director at D'Youville College; Lawlor Quinlan III, a lawyer; Herbert M. Siegel, a lawyer; and Catherine Schweitzer, executive director of the Baird Foundation.

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"I thought it would look better to have a clean sweep and one structure," Karman said. "But obviously, the majority of the others felt they had historical ties and affection for the existing bridge."

How some jurors viewed the Peace Bridge's standing as a historic structure emerged as a pivotal issue in the meeting.

Mark L. Peckham of the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation briefed the jury.

Peckham said he told the jury that the state in 1998 designated the Peace Bridge eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places. As a result, federal laws and regulations require a compelling reason to demolish the existing bridge, built in 1927, he said.

Parsons Transportation Group, the project manager for the binational environmental review for the Peace Bridge process, has come up with concepts for a companion span.

For years, proponents of a replacement bridge have maintained the authority could overcome that designation and tear down the Peace Bridge.

Peckham's comments "had a real impact," Siegel said.

Without Peckham's remarks, "the vote might have gone the other way," Siegel said.

What worried some jurors about the bridge's designation is the prospect of lawsuits and delays that could arise from preservationists if the Peace Bridge Authority moved to demolish the existing bridge.

For years, Belt campaigned for a new six-lane bridge to replace the existing Peace Bridge, especially during his time four years ago as president of the New Millennium Group of Western New York. He's no longer a board member for the New Millennium Group but serves as a Buffalo Olmsted Parks Conservancy board member.

"I can see, in my mind's eye, a great crossing composed of a great new signature bridge and the old bridge nearby," Belt said.

He said he wrote a letter to the bridge authority in 1999 calling for a new signature bridge and an adaptive reuse of the existing bridge.

e-mail: plakamp@buffnews.com