The two-decade search for money to replace Charleston’s aging Cooper River bridges is over.

Meeting at the South Carolina Aquarium on Sunday, the State Infrastructure Bank’s board voted unanimously to commit to a $215 million federal loan critical to building a new eight-lane bridge, The Post and Courier reported. The vote pieces together the entire $631 million needed for the project, the newspaper reported.

“Unbelievable. Unbelievable,” said state Sen. Arthur Ravenel, R-Mount Pleasant, a bank board member for whom the new bridge is named. “Finally, we’re going to break ground.”

A groundbreaking ceremony is scheduled for 10 a.m. Monday at U.S. 17 and Coleman Boulevard in Mount Pleasant.

Last week, the South Carolina Department of Transportation approved a $531 million contract to design and build the bridge, the newspaper reported. The design-builder is Palmetto Bridge Constructors, a joint venture of Tidewater Skanska and HBG Flatiron, according to the department.

The new span will replace the two-lane John P. Grace Memorial Bridge, which opened in 1929, and the three-lane Silas N. Pearman Bridge, which opened in 1966.

Getting the money took years of standoffs. The bank, formed in 1997 to fund the state’s largest unfunded projects, insisted that local communities chip in, and Charleston County voters turned down a half-cent sales tax last year. Earlier this year, Charleston County Council agreed to contribute $3 million a year for 25 years.

Gov. Jim Hodges had promised a $5 million contribution from the State Ports Authority. The authority’s board agreed to $3 million a year, contingent on lawmakers approving a proposed port terminal on Daniel Island. The bank and the transportation department agreed to dedicate more money to cover the shortfall.

“It’s amazing what you can get done if you’re not concerned with who gets the credit,” said Howard “Champ” Covington, the bank’s board chairman.

The cable-stayed design calls for two towers about 570 feet high and 128 cables covered in white sheathing.

“The main idea behind it, with a cable-stayed bridge, was to evoke a sail motif,” Riyad Ghannam of McDonald Architects in San Francisco, one of the companies designing and building the bridge, told the newspaper.