Walsh Group, Chicago, appears to be the big winner—leading one design-build team and part of a public-private partnership (P3)—in bids for two new, 2,500-ft-long cable-stayed bridges across the Ohio River in Kentucky and Indiana.
Along with France's Vinci Concessions and Bilfinger Berger PI International Holding GmbH, Walsh Investors leads a P3 team that the Indiana Finance Authority named last month as the preferred proposer for the East End Crossing. The bridge, designed by Parsons Brinckerhoff, is one of the components of the estimated $2.6-billion Ohio River Bridges program.
The P3 proposal, apparently edging out three others, calls for building the bridge at $763 million, 23% less than the estimated cost and, by October 2016, eight months ahead of schedule. The bridge will link Louisville to southern Indiana. The job includes a 1,680-ft twin-bore tunnel on the Kentucky approach and 19 additional bridges, according to Vinci.
Final approval is subject to review by the Indiana Budget Committee and the governor. The P3 team's design-build joint-venture group, including Walsh Construction, Vinci Construction Grands Projets and Jacobs Engineering, would construct the bridge.
Walsh's construction unit also leads a design-build team that the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet (KTC) named as the apparent winning bidder among three teams for the Downtown Crossing, conceptually designed by Michael Baker Inc. The design-build team's "apparent best value" bid includes a projected completion date of December 2016 at a construction cost of $860 million. That proposal is more than a year and a half ahead of the deadline and $90 million under the cabinet's preliminary cost estimate of $950 million, according to KTC officials.
