The contract for the Eastside portion of the 520 project has been approved! We are expecting to start moving dirt “real soon now,” with significant construciton starting in the Spring.
Eastside Corridor Constructors tops list for SR 520 Eastside project
$306.3 million to design and rebuild SR 520 corridor from Medina to Bellevue
SEATTLE – The bids are open and the scores tallied for the SR 520 Eastside Transit and HOV Project, and the Eastside Corridor Constructors joint venture team has emerged with the apparent best value proposal.
Eastside Corridor Constructors (ECC) bid price of $306.3 million is nearly $116 million less than the state’s $422 million estimate for the project. The Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) plans to award the contract to ECC within a few weeks.
“This project provides family wage jobs that are vital to our state’s economic recovery during these tough times,” said Gov. Chris Gregoire. “And this project helps ensure that the absolutely crucial 520 corridor, which provides access to some of our state’s largest job centers, remains safe and reliable for decades to come.”
The project is expected to reduce travel times for buses and carpools and improve safety, access and reliability in the corridor when completed. Construction is expected to begin in early 2011. The project is estimated to directly employ hundreds of workers at the peak of construction, as well as benefit the regional economy by purchasing materials and supporting jobs.
“We continue to see an excellent bidding environment,” Washington Transportation Secretary Paula Hammond said. “We’re one step closer to delivering much-needed improvements on SR 520. Commuters can look forward to using the continuous HOV lanes from Redmond to Medina and across the floating bridge in 2014.”
ECC is a joint venture of Granite Construction Company and PCL Construction Services. WSDOT recently hired Granite to build bridge projects in Everett and Tacoma; PCL seismically retrofitted WSDOT’s I-90 bridges in Seattle and built a Sound Transit light rail station. Granite has offices in Everett and PCL has offices in Seattle.
ECC was one of three world-class teams competing for the design-build project. ECC’s proposal stood out in part because they plan to complete the project more quickly than WSDOT required. The proposal also included fewer complete highway closures on weekends and fewer lane closures overall during construction.
Proposals and bids also were submitted by two other joint venture teams of Skanska-Flatiron and Kiewit-Atkinson. All teams were rated in part on their proposed designs for two transit stations, plans to minimize traffic and bus service disruptions during construction, and ways to minimize construction noise and protect the environment during construction.
A design-build contract combines project design and construction in a single contract. A designer and contractor jointly submit a detailed design proposal with a fixed price, giving opportunities for innovations and assuring WSDOT and taxpayers that costs are controlled. The winning team is chosen for its apparent best value proposal, calculated based on bid price and technical proposal scores.
The construction contract will include:
- Widening the corridor and constructing new transit and carpool lanes, shoulders and other facilities along 2.5 miles of SR 520 from west of Evergreen Point Road to east of 108th Avenue NE in Bellevue.
- Constructing three landscaped lids over SR 520, two with access to new transit stops that also will be built as part of the project.
- Constructing newly aligned general purpose ramps and direct-access ramps for buses and carpools at 108th Avenue NE.
- Adding a regional path for bicycles and pedestrians.
- Constructing fish-passable culverts, stormwater detention and treatment facilities, noise walls, and stream and wetlands improvements.
“Years of support from Eastside communities helped us reach this important milestone,” said SR 520 Program Director Julie Meredith. “We look forward to continuing our partnership with all the Eastside jurisdictions.”
The Eastside project is funded in part by toll revenue to be collected on the floating bridge starting spring 2011. The Legislature set the SR 520 program budget at $4.65 billion for improvements from I-5 in Seattle to SR 202 in Redmond. Toll revenue and state and federal funds provide about $2.37 billion for the SR 520 improvements. WSDOT will continue to work with legislators to identify additional funding to complete improvements in the corridor.
More information about the SR 520 Program and the Eastside Transit and HOV Project is available at www.wsdot.wa.gov/projects/sr520bridge.
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