Millstone Weber of St. Charles, Missouri, has been tapped to expand a 20-mile stretch of I-70 between Columbia and Kingdom City in Missouri, part of a vital but aging transportation corridor. Dallas, Texas-based contractor Jacobs was selected to perform design work.
The Missouri Highways and Transportation Commission awarded the Millstone Weber-Jacobs team the first contract in its overall $2.8 billion, 200-mile, six-phase Improve I-70 Program, which runs from Blue Springs to Wentzville. The firms beat out one other design-build team, Missouri DOT said in a Feb. 14 release, and the final fixed-cost, design-build contract is now being negotiated.
“Today’s contractor selection marks the beginning of this generational opportunity to improve I-70, which serves as a critical economic east-west corridor across Missouri,” said MHTC Chairman Terry Ecker in the release. MHTC is the board that governs Missouri DOT.
Currently, many parts of I-70 are strained beyond capacity and interchange designs are outdated, according to Missouri DOT. Work is starting on this stretch of highway because it is the most shovel-ready, Jeff Gander, the Improve I-70 central project director, told KCUR, a local NPR affiliate based in Kansas City.
This first phase of Improve I-70 will repave old lanes and build a third lane in each direction between U.S. 63 in Columbia and U.S. 54 in Kingdom City, build two new bridges and four new roundabouts and redo the interchanges.
Millstone Weber is a full-service heavy civil construction company in the transportation industry, including the rail and transit, highway, bridge and aviation sectors. The firm is currently building the I-270 North project in North St. Louis County, Missouri, and worked on the Denver International Airport Concourse Expansion.
The project is slated to begin this summer and is set to wrap by late 2027. Additional renderings and final plans will be released at public meetings sometime this spring, per the release.
