Kentucky has chosen Walsh Construction Co. to build the so-called downtown crossing, the state’s share of the massive Ohio River Bridges Project.
The construction company’s team offered the apparent “best-value” bid of the three submissions in an evaluation process that scored proposals based on overall price, technical plans and workforce requirements.
Price proposals, which included both cost and days of construction, counted for 70% of the overall score.
Walsh included a projected completion date of December 2016 at a construction cost of $860 million.
The bid is well over a year ahead of the required deadline, and $90 million less than the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet’s preliminary cost estimate of $950 million.
The cabinet had set an absolute deadline of June 30, 2018, for the project to be done.
Walsh plans to begin construction early next year on a new Interstate 65 bridge, renovation of the existing Kennedy Bridge/I-65 though downtown Louisville, and reconstruction of interchanges in downtown Louisville and Jeffersonville, Ind.
“We challenged the best transportation teams to deliver innovative, cost-efficient plans for the largest construction project in the history of Kentucky and Indiana,” said Kentucky Transportation Secretary Mike Hancock. “The result of this spirited competition will be a project that will cost less and take less time to build.”
Kentucky has 90 days to award the contract to the Walsh team, which also includes Milestone Contractors LP, lead designer Jacobs Engineering Group Inc., and structural design engineer Buckland & Taylor Ltd.
The total cost of the downtown crossing will exceed $1 billion, including expenditures for land acquisition, utility relocation, preliminary design and consulting work, construction oversight, toll system development, and other key goals.
The state plans to use traditional financing to pay for the cost, including state and federal funds, toll bonds, and possibly a low-interest loan from the federal government.
A schedule for selling bonds has not been released.
Indiana, which is in the $2.6 billion joint venture with Kentucky, is using a public-private partnership and recently selected Walsh Investors LLC to build its half of the project.
