A joint venture of
American Bridge Co., Coraopolis, Pa., and Edward Kraemer &
Sons Inc., Plain, Wisc., is the apparent low bidder to build
the bascule portion of the new Woodrow Wilson bridge across
the Potomac River. The American Bridge-Kraemer bid was $185.9
million, or 11% above the Maryland State Highway Administration's
$168-million engineers' estimate, but SHA Administrator Parker
Williams indicated it was in the acceptable range. After proposals
were opened Nov. 7 in Baltimore, he said, "I think we've
got a workable bid here."
Rendering
of drawspan for new Wilson bridge (Photo courtesy of Parsons
Corp.)
There was a big gap between
the low bid and the second-low proposal, from a team of Cianbro
Corp., Pittsfield, Maine, and Weeks Marine Inc., Cranford,
N.J. The Cianbro-Weeks bid was $221.3 million, which was $35.4
million, or 19%, higher than American Bridge-Kraemer's.
The other contenders were:
Tidewater Skanska-Taylor, Virginia Beach, Va., at $241.96
million; Perini/Tutor-Saliba/O&G, Hawthorne, N.Y., at
$242.3 million; and FruCon Construction Corp. Ballwin, Mo.-Cleveland
Bridge, at $244.7 million.
"We're excited," says Brad Saver, senior estimator
with American Bridge. Asked to explain the reasons for the
spread in bids, he says, "I don't have a way to know
how [the other teams] bid, so I couldn't really tell you."
Cianbro doesn't plan to challenge
the result, says Mac Cianchette, the company's vice president
of operations. "We're sorry we lost the job," Cianchette
says. Noting that there was a gap between Cianbro's bid and
the tightly bunched prices from the third, fourth and fifth
bids, Cianchette says, "We can only assume that we had
a different plan to build the project." He adds, "And
we're really baffled at the spread between us and the low
bidder."
The bridge is the centerpiece of
a $2.44-billion project that also includes two major Capital
Beltway interchange upgrades on each side of the river. The
new crossing would replace the existing 40-year-old Wilson
bridge, which has been battered by much higher traffic volumes
than originally envisioned.
The contract includes building
the bascule sections of both of the parallel, six-lane spans,
as well as constructing the bridge operator's tower and demolishing
the drawspan on the current six-lane bridge.
Maryland's Williams says,
"We're delighted that we got five bids." Maryland
last year had advertised the entire bridge as a single contract
and was shocked that it received just one bid, which was $360
million, or 72%, above its estimate.
The state rejected that bid,
from a team of Kiewit Construction Co., Tidewater Construction
Corp. and Clark Construction Co., and hired a committee of
consultants, led by Tom Warne, former head of the Utah Dept.
of Transportation. That panel's recommendations included breaking
up the job into three contracts to get more bidders and, it
hoped, better prices.
Although the drawspan bid is $17.9
million above Maryland's estimate, Williams says the state
is about 4% below its total budget to date, because nine of
the state's 10 other contacts awarded so far on the Wilson
project have come in below estimates.
He says state highway officials
will review the bid and hope to make an award by January.
A notice to proceed would come in March.
With the rebidding, "We've
lost about a year," Williams says. The first six-lane
span is now slated to open in late 2005 or early 2006, with
the second crossing to open two years later.
