Dive Brief:
- The Florida Department of Transportation has selected Skanska USA Civil Southeast, with its bid of $398.5 million, as the contractor for the Pensacola Bay Bridge replacement, according to the Pensacola News Journal.
- Although Skanska had the lowest design scores out of all competing contractors, its proposal price was $69 million less than the next-lowest bidder, and that was enough to make it the FDOT's choice after considering the adjusted score.
- The Bay Bridge replacement is the largest construction project ever for Pensacola, FL, and officials said it will use up a year's worth of state bridge funds.
Dive Insight:
According to the FDOT, the other contractors who submitted bids have 72 hours to dispute the selection committee's decision. After that period has expired, the agency will make the bridge design public and then officially award Skanska the project on July 29. The next-lowest bidder was Johnson Bros. Corp, but the joint venture of Anderson-De Moya-Leware was in the lead with the highest score until the FDOT figured in its $509 million bid.
FDOT officials said Skanska is also currently building the Choctawhatchee Bay Bridge in Walton County, FL, and was the contractor on the post-Hurricane Ivan Escambia Bay Bridge project near Pensacola.
The joint venture of Skanska Koch/Kiewit Infrastructure Co. is the general contractor on the $1.3 billion Bayonne Bridge "Raise the Roadway" project, which will lift the existing bridge high enough for the new, larger post-Panamax container ships now in use following the opening of a new shipping lane through the Panama Canal. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey announced in October of last year that the bridge, originally scheduled for completion in 2017, will not be finished until mid-2019.
An American Road and Transportation Builders Association study released in February found that, as of 2015, almost 10% of U.S. bridges (58,495) were structurally deficient. In addition, the U.S Department of Transportation estimated that there was a $115 billion, 21-year backlog for bridge repairs.
