The Missouri Dept. of Transportation’s request for proposals was challenging: The agency wanted 11.5 miles of Interstate 64 through St. Louis redesigned, upgraded and modernized, with 30 bridges and overpasses rebuilt; it wanted the project completed in four years, and it wanted it all for $420 million. Two teams vied for the contract. One proposed to deliver eight miles in 48 months. The winner proposed to deliver 10 miles in 45 months.
Don Rasmussen led Gateway Constructors Inc., the winning design-build joint venture that conceived the plan to completely close half of the highway in 2008, reopen it and close the other half in 2009. “Gateway’s approach to shut the entire highway down in five-mile segments and use Interstate 170 as a pivot-point on the project is what allowed them to come up with constructing this entire thing without having to go through a lot of temporary traffic controls and temporary shoring and paving,” says Ronald Morris, MoDOT’s deputy project director.