A $100-million funding gap has forced the Minnesota Dept. of Transportation to delay major portions of Duluth’s Twin Ports Interchange project by a year.
Originally budgeted at $343 million and awarded to the joint venture of Ames Construction and Kraemer in the summer of 2018, the already challenging three-year reconstruction of the I-35/I-535/Highway 53 interchange has grown in complexity and cost as multiple engineering firms have tackled a host of site condition unknowns. Many arise from the project’s location in a congested former industrial area, contributing to its unofficial “can of worms” nickname.