THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, May 5, 1995 TAG: 9505050594
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY CHRISTOPHER DINSMORE, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 75 lines
The local company that built the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel more than 30 years ago won't be building its parallel span.
The Chesapeake Bay Bridge and Tunnel Commission voted Thursday to award the contract to a joint venture led by Denver-based PCL Civil Constructors Inc. PCL's team bid $197.2 million on the project.
The original builder, Tidewater Bridge and Tunnel Builders, was underbid by less than 2 percent.
Work on the 18-mile project is expected to begin in June and be completed by 1999, said James G. Brookshire, executive director of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and Tunnel District.
Tidewater Bridge and Tunnel Builders, a joint venture of Norfolk-based Tidewater Construction Corp. and Kiewit Construction Corp. of Omaha, Neb., lost with a bid of $200.9 million. Tidewater Bridge and Tunnel erected the first span across the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, which opened in 1964.
``You always have a soft spot for your Virginia contractors, but in a competitive bid process they lost,'' Brookshire said.
The commission is required by state law to accept the lowest bid, Brookshire said. The bids were sealed, he said.
Tidewater Bridge and Tunnel ``came in an awfully close second,'' he said. ``We've been very close to Tidewater through the years. We've called on them in times of need, like ship accidents, and we anticipate calling on them again.''
Ed McGlaughlin, Tidewater Construction's president and chief executive, could not be reached for comment Thursday.
PCL Civil Constructors's joint venture partners include The Hardaway Co. of Columbus, Ga., and Rockland, Mass.-based Interbeton Inc. A subsidiary of Interbeton was a partner in the joint venture that built the Monitor-Merrimac Memorial Bridge-Tunnel on Interstate 664 that connected the Peninsula to Suffolk.
``We're very excited,'' said Dave Filipchuk, project manager for PCL. ``With the depth that we have and what our partners are bringing to the table, we feel absolutely capable of doing this project.''
PCL does about $1.5 billion of construction work annually in the United States and Canada. On the Bay Bridge project it will use its own project management staff, but plans to hire hourly craft labor in Hampton Roads, Filipchuk said. The project will probably employ about 200 people at any given time, he said.
The contract is for the construction of a new two-lane span that will parallel the existing Bay Bridge. Traffic will continue to be funneled into the two existing tunnels where the two spans will merge.
The new bridge would be built to the west of the existing span and serve southbound traffic from the Eastern Shore on U.S. Route 13. It is scheduled to be completed by September 1998.
All traffic will be routed to the new span and the old span will then be closed and refurbished by July 1999.
New tunnels will be built sometime after the turn of the century. New tunnels would cost about $800 million.
The Chesapeake Bay Bridge and Tunnel District will pay for the project with a mix of money already set aside and revenue bonds. It sold $102 million of revenue bonds Tuesday.
The district charges a $10 toll to automobiles that cross the bridge and tunnel. About 2.7 million vehicles crossed the span in 1994, raising $32.9 million.
The project's total cost will be about $215 million. That pays for new toll booths, engineering costs and a contract with a Maryland Heights, Mo.-based Sverdrup Civil Inc., which will act as construction manager.
Other bidders on the project were TJA Contractors and Chesapeake Bridge Constructors. Both were joint ventures involving some of the biggest construction companies in the nation, including Traylor Brothers Inc., J.A. Jones Construction Co., Perini Corp. and Brown & Root Inc. The closest of those two bids was $34.7 million more than the PCL team's winning bid. by CNB