Contractor Teams Prequalified for Cable Stays on St. Louis Bridge

Four contractor teams have been prequalified to bid on the cable-stay portion of a $640-million bridge between St. Louis and East St. Louis, Ill.:

Kiewit Western Co.; American Bridge Co.; a joint venture between Walsh Construction Co. and PCL; and a joint venture among Massman Construction Co., Traylor Brothers Inc. and Alberici Enterprises.

The teams will submit bids at the end of 2009, says Andrew Gates, a spokesman for the St. Louis District of the Missouri Dept of Transportation.

Contractor teams will have the opportunity in August 2009 to prequalify for the bridge construction, Gates says. The contractor team with the lowest bid will win the contract.

Additionally, eight contractors have indicated that they were interested in working with designers to develop potentially cheaper construction alternatives on the bridge approaches—the section of the roadway on either side of the bridge leading to the bridge.

Those contractors are Fred Weber Inc., KCI Construction Co., Keeley and Sons, Keller Construction Inc., Kozeny-Wagner, Millstone-Bangert Inc., St. Louis Bridge Construction Co. and Walsh Construction Co.

The project is expected to start in early 2010, Gates says. It is being jointly developed between the MoDOT and the Illinois Dept of Transportation. In April, Kansas City, Mo.-based HNTB Corp. was named the bridge designer.

Walsh Low Bidder on Final Borman Contract

Chicago-based Walsh Construction Co. is the apparent low bidder, $97.4 million, for the final Major Moves Interchange Modification contract at Interstate 65 and the Borman Expressway (Interstate 80/94).

Scheduled for completion in 2011, this project will convert the Borman from six to 10 lanes between State Road 53 (Broadway) and Central Avenue.

Scheduled to begin once the weather allows, this third of three Interchange Modification contracts will begin widening work on the eastbound Borman lanes. That will include varying lane and ramp restrictions as work progresses. The second year of construction will focus on the westbound lanes.

The first two contracts currently under construction are upgrading the ramps between I-65 and the Borman, as well as improving I-65 at the interchange. The closure of I-65 between the Borman and 15th Avenue and all the ramp closures associated with these projects will be lifted by the first week of December.

$450-Million Hoosier Highway Has Groundbreaking

A groundbreaking was recently held to mark the start of construction on the $450-million Hoosier Heartland Corridor (State Road 25) between Lafayette and Logansport in north-central Indiana.

Originally scheduled to start in 2010, the project start was accelerated on the orders of Gov. Mitch Daniels, with completion scheduled for 2013. Chicago-based Walsh Construction Co. has the first contract.

SR 25 will be a 31-mi, four-lane, limited access divided highway. The project is divided into four segments, with construction starting in the west at Interstate 65. Along the corridor, INDOT’s project team and design consultants are in varying stages of roadway design, right-of-way acquisition and utility relocation. The Hoosier Heartland corridor will provide greater and safer access from Lafayette to Fort Wayne, where it will link to the US 24 segment known as the Fort-to-Port corridor. When the final segment of US 24 in Ohio is completed, central Indiana will have direct access to Toledo.

The project is part of Indiana’s Major Moves transportation program that funds a decade of highway projects.