It won’t take its position in the Baltimore skyline for at least three and a half years, but now, Marylanders know what the replacement for the Francis Scott Key Bridge will look like: cable-stayed and far taller than the felled span.

The span will have two pylons with cables jutting out from the top, forming webs of support, towering more than 600 feet above the Patapsco River. That makes the structure significantly taller than the original steel truss bridge’s highest point of 358 feet and higher, even, than initially anticipated.

The Maryland Transportation Authority proposed in a document last summer pylons about 500 to 550 feet tall and a main span — that is, the gap between the two primary support piers — about 1,400 feet long.

To ensure the bridge is adequately protected, however, the new plan is for the main span to be at least 1,600 feet wide.

The length of the main span is crucial because the farther a key support pier is from the shipping channel, the lower the odds are that a ship could strike the structure.

“We have to make consideration for vessel protection, protecting the bridge,” the authority’s chief engineer, James Harkness, said after a news conference Tuesday to unveil the design. “Getting [the piers] further apart obviously helps.”

Gov. Wes Moore, Lt. Gov. Aruna Miller, U.S. Rep. Sarah Elfreth and other officials attended the preliminary design reveal.

As experts predicted, the bridge will be cable-stayed, a modern bridge type popular for its cost-effectiveness and stability. In a cable-stayed bridge, the roadway is kept upright by cables, which are fastened to tall towers. It will be Maryland’s first cable-stayed span.

Miller called the bridge a “beacon of perseverance,” and Moore said it will be “constructed in accordance with the most advanced industry standards and the very best in infrastructure design.”

“We still have work to do. But this is a very important step forward,” Moore told a crowd of officials and reporters at Tradepoint Atlantic in Sparrows Point.

After the Key Bridge was struck by the massive Dali container ship on March 26, tumbling the span into the river and killing six construction workers, its protective systems were scrutinized.

Built in 1977, the bridge predated modern fortification requirements and was not built to withstand forces from huge ships that sail oceans today. Instead of a robust system boasted by modern bridges, the structure had small “dolphins,” which are artificial islands built to protect piers.

Renderings of the bridge, its design and whether or not it will have dolphins, are subject to more changes. Secretary of Transportation Paul Wiedefeld said those decisions are still in “preliminary design.”

“We’re looking at a mix, a hybrid,” Harkness said of pier protection options.

The nation’s bridge code suggests that a bridge’s main span should be at least double that of the channel width. The shipping channel underneath the Key Bridge, which regularly carries massive ships, is 700 feet wide, but has previously been authorized to be 800 feet wide.

Lengthening the span to 1,600 feet, as opposed to 1,400 feet, meets the code’s guidelines and decreases the chances of a collision should a ship lose steering, power or face another unforeseen issue.

Like the old bridge, the new one is expected to have four lanes for automobiles, but will be slightly wider to accommodate larger shoulders.

“We know how important this bridge is to the Port of Baltimore, how important the port is to the city and, really, to the country,” Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott said Tuesday.

The design decision comes five months after the state contracted engineering giant Kiewit Corp. to build the span. The bridge is expected to open to traffic in 2028 and cost between $1.7 billion and $1.9 billion. That timeline and budget, first announced last May, will be updated in one or two months, Wiedefeld said.

Armand Patella, executive vice president of the Maryland Motor Truck Association, emphasized the importance of building the bridge quickly, given traffic impacts that drivers can relate to. Citing a recent study from the University of Maryland and Morgan State University, Patella said that by 2028, the collapse of the bridge will have cost the trucking industry roughly $450 million in operating costs.

The process of building the bridge has already begun, though it doesn’t look like much yet. Boats, barges and small cranes have collected soil samples and mapped waterways as part of preliminary construction activities.

Vestiges of the old bridge remain and are expected to be demolished in the coming months. Crews are also expected to construct trestles this spring to aid in the construction efforts.