Walsh/WSP Win $339M Rhode Island Bridge Job

Walsh Development Co. has been chosen to construct a brand new westbound span for the I-195 Washington Bridge in Windfall, R.I., restoring a crossing compelled to shut in December 2023 as a result of superior structural deterioration.

Walsh and design associate WSP will start work on the $339-million design-build mission subsequent month, in keeping with the Rhode Island Dept. of Transportation (RIDOT). The company has additionally budgeted a $10-million bonus for completion forward of the scheduled November 2028 goal date, with a $25,000 every day penalty for missed milestone dates. Contingency funds, inspection and proprietor’s consultant providers and different “gentle prices” may convey the rebuild mission’s whole price to as a lot as $427 million, RIDOT says.

“It’s a wonderful bid, it’s a wonderful value,” RIDOT director Peter Alviti instructed a June 6 press convention saying the choice.

He famous that whereas the Walsh/WSP price estimate for the best-value procurement was roughly $50 million lower than the bid from shortlisted competitor American Bridge Co./MLJ Contracting Corp., each groups’ technical proposals have been “inside a few factors of one another.”

In accordance with RIDOT, the five-lane substitute bridge will probably be greater than 450 ft shorter than its 1,671-ft-long predecessor, which was closed on short notice in December 2023 when structural deterioration found throughout a restore mission was discovered to be extra widespread than had been reported throughout earlier scheduled inspections.

Final August, RIDOT filed suit against 13 engineers and contractors that had inspected or carried out work on the bridge over the previous decade. That litigation continues to be pending. In the meantime, the 25-year-old eastbound span of the Washington Bridge has been briefly reconfigured to deal with two-way visitors till a substitute is constructed.

After discovering structural deterioration in December 2023, the westbound bridge closed and the eastbound bridge has dealt with two-way visitors ever since. The westbound bridge was demolished after it was decided in March 2024 that structural deterioration on the 56-year-old span was worse than initially thought.
Picture courtesy Rhode Island Dept. of Transportation

Full demolition of the westbound bridge is scheduled to be accomplished in December, with removing of the final underwater foundations.

Walsh’s substitute design requires a brand new substructure with fewer in-water piers within the Seekonk River, a capability of 80,000 automobiles a day and options that may make the bridge simpler to examine and preserve throughout its 100-year design life.

Walsh Development program supervisor Chuck Parrish instructed reporters that his workforce modeled its strategy on the not too long ago accomplished south span of the I-270 Chain of Rocks Bridge, a 5,400-ft-long concrete deck metal girder construction throughout the Mississippi River Walsh constructed as a part of a $496.2-mllion mission for the Illinois and Missouri Depts. of Transportation.

“The streamlined repetitive design of the construction components…mixed with the constant and simply produceable metal members allowed for fast development with prime quality,” Parrish mentioned, including that the Chain of Rocks Bridge is almost three-and-a-half occasions the size of the deliberate Washington Bridge, and was accomplished in two years.

The distinctive alternative to basically construct the identical bridge twice, Parrish famous, “gave us the arrogance to decide to each the worth and schedule that we certainly can meet in delivering the brand new bridge” in Rhode Island.

RIDOT’s funding technique for the brand new bridge contains as much as $334.6 million in GARVEE bonding capability, and two federal Mega-INFRA grants totaling $221 million finalized earlier this 12 months. The state may also make the most of greater than $107 million from its capital tasks funds, a repurposed $15-million federal BUILD grant, and $35 million in unused federal pandemic assist.

As such, Gov. Dan McKee (D) instructed reporters, “the brand new bridge will probably be constructed at no further price to taxpayers.”

The highway to substitute

The number of Walsh for the westbound Washington Bridge rebuild comes practically a 12 months after RIDOT’s preliminary RFP for a fast-tracked substitute attracted no bidders. A reworked procurement course of providing comparable early completion incentives with a less-aggressive timeline led to the shortlisting of Walsh and the American Bridge/MLJ workforce final December.

Along with the brand new westbound bridge, the mission contains a number of measures geared toward addressing longstanding congestion upgrades alongside the I-195 hall, together with reconfigured journey lanes and widening two current bridges in East Windfall. Prefabricated arches will probably be constructed over native streets on each the Windfall and East Windfall sides of the river to imitate the look the unique Washington Bridge, RIDOT says.

The company has additionally stepped up the frequency and content material of its inspection program for the Washington Bridge’s eastbound span, together with the addition of automated monitoring tools. RIDOT director Alviti instructed reporters that two separate assessments of structural hundreds commissioned by the company decided that eastbound bridge’s structural integrity had not been compromised by the a great deal of two-way visitors and momentary concrete limitations

Alviti expressed confidence that the eastbound bridge will proceed to carry out safely throughout development of the brand new westbound span. He cited a not too long ago obtained follow-up loading capability evaluation of the construction that, “discovered no change to the unique evaluation.”