When Superior Construction Co. Southeast officially won the $234-million Wekiva 6 contract in 2017, it was a big deal. For starters, the Florida Dept. of Transportation contract was the 80-year-old firm’s largest ever. But for the civil and transportation contractor, winning the job to build the Wekiva River Bridge—the signature element of Central Florida’s high-profile Wekiva Parkway project—wasn’t just about the numbers.
After all, it was the firm’s third Wekiva Parkway contract, out of six awarded by that time. Instead, as anyone familiar with the 25-mile-long corridor project knows, Wekiva 6 contains one of the nation’s most environmentally sensitive bridge projects, over a “wild and scenic river.” For decades, the crossing was the focal point for environmentalists’ protests that kept the sprawling corridor from being built.