The $631.7 million Interstate 30 corridor project through downtown Little Rock and North Little Rock has drawn interest from some of the world's largest civil infrastructure firms.
The attraction was evident in the roster of companies that responded by Friday's deadline to the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department's request for qualifications from firms interested in designing and building the 30 Crossing project, which will remake the 6.7-mile section of I-30 as well as replace its bridge over the Arkansas River.
The department's request attracted a total of six responses from 11 firms, none of which are based in Arkansas, which state highway officials said wasn't unexpected, given that the project is the largest ever undertaken in Arkansas and will be the first in the state to use the design-build contracting method.
"There's nobody here with a big enough balance sheet to do what we're asking them to do," Tom Schueck, a member of the Arkansas Highway Commission from Little Rock, said Friday. "But that doesn't mean the locals are out. Those big companies will [subcontract] a lot of stuff to locals."
Ben Browning, the design/build project director for the department, said he was pleased with the number of responses, which were all hand-delivered before the 3 p.m. deadline.
"It's a good number on a project of this size," he said. "It's right where we expected."
At least one of the responses contained two companies familiar with Arkansas roads and bridges: Kiewit Infrastructure South Co. of Fort Worth, Texas, and Massman Construction Co. of Kansas City, Mo. They said they will organize as a joint venture, according to their qualifications.
Massman is wrapping up work on replacing the Broadway Bridge, which also crosses the Arkansas River between Little Rock and North Little Rock's downtowns.
The $98.6 million project required the old bridge to be closed to traffic and removed and a new one built in its place, all within six months. Massman opened the new bridge in February, about a month ahead of schedule.
Kiewit has won contracts on several high-profile Arkansas highway projects over the years.
It is working on a $22.3 million project to build a new ramp from Cantrell Road to Interstate 430 north in Little Rock and on a $94.8 million project to widen a 2.9-mile section of Interstate 49 between Porter Road and the Arkansas 112 and U.S. 71B interchanges in Fayetteville, a project that also involves improving the interchanges.
The company also did some of the early work on the Interstate 430/Interstate 630 interchange in west Little Rock.
"They do a lot of work here, and they do good work," said Danny Straessle, a department spokesman.
The other companies competing to work on 30 Crossing are:
• Flatiron Construction Co. of Bloomfield, Colo., and Architecture, Engineering, Consulting, Operations and Maintenance of Los Angeles, which submitted their qualifications as a joint venture.
Flatiron, a subsidiary of Hochtief of Germany, one of the world's largest international construction providers, is the contractor on a $1.3 billion project to build a section of the California high-speed rail initiative.
The Los Angeles firm known as AECOM describes itself as a fully-integrated Fortune 500 company with employees who "design, build, finance and operate infrastructure assets for governments, businesses and organizations in more than 150 countries." It is the prime engineering and design consultant on the $4.45 billion Second Avenue Subway project in New York City, the first major expansion of the city's subway system in more than 50 years.
• The Lane Construction Corp. of Cheshire, Conn., and Condotte America of Medley, Fla., which submitted their qualifications as a joint venture.
Lane Construction has 4,600 employees, operates in 28 states with 12 domestic offices and has three international offices.
Its construction portfolio includes its status as lead contractor on the $2.4 billion Interstate 4 project in Orlando, Fla. It includes reconstruction of 21 miles of I-4, including the addition of four tolled express lanes, reconstruction of 15 major interchanges and construction of 140 bridges.
Condotte, which says it has bond coverage for more than $1 billion in projects, has a joint venture for a $568.7 million project to improve a congested interchange segment on the Palmetto Expressway, a Miami-area bypass on which more than 425,000 vehicles travel daily.
• Granite Construction Co. of Watsonville, Calif., and Archer Western Construction LLC of Atlanta, which are organized as a joint venture.
Granite, which was formed in 1922 and boasts 3,600 employees, was part of a joint venture that was awarded a $917 million contract to build a 22-mile section of the South Mountain Freeway in Phoenix.
Archer Western, a subsidiary of the Walsh Group, is part of a team on a $1.4 billion project to rebuild a 30-mile section of Interstate 35 in Texas. It includes 39 bridges, more than 800 utility relocations, and design and construction of tolled managed lanes, general-purpose lanes, collector-distributor roads and bridges.
• Lunda Construction Co. of Black River Falls, Wis., and Parsons Construction Group of Sumner, Wash.
Lunda has a portfolio that is heavy on bridge construction, including the Crosstown Commons in Minneapolis, a $300 million project that involved the construction and installation of six bridges in one of the busiest traffic corridors in the Minneapolis/St. Paul metro area.
Parsons, which is a worldwide company, is known in Pulaski County as the construction manager on the $67 million project to remake the terminal at Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport/Adams Field. It was dedicated four years ago.
• Ferrovial Agroman US Corp. of Austin. Its parent company, Madrid-based Ferrovial, bills itself as the "world's leading private investor in transportation infrastructures, with a workforce of approximately 70,000 employees and operations in more than 15 countries."
Ferrovial Agroman was the only company to submit its response without a joint venture partner.
Its parent company's international portfolio includes management of Heathrow Airport in London and the provision of municipal services to more than 800 cities and towns in Spain. In the United States, Ferrovial Agroman has a $985 million project to reconstruct a 6.5-mile segment of the North Tarrant Express in Fort Worth, which includes the addition of four managed high-occupancy vehicle lanes.
A team of state highway officials will spend the next two months reviewing and scoring the qualifications and will pare the list to three teams, Browning said. Then the department will meet with each team individually over several months on what will be expected of the contractor.
Once the project receives federal approval, tentatively expected by March, a request for proposals will be issued. Each team will have four to six months to respond. The team will likely be selected by the end of 2018, Browning said.
"These are probably serious players," Schueck said. "Now you have to get into the nuts and bolts, and that takes a long time and whittle it down from here."
Whichever firm or team is selected, it will have a budget, he said. The $631.7 million price tag includes all the federal and state money the department has identified for the project.
"That's what makes it great for a contractor," Schueck said. "He's designing it and building it to a budget. That means they're serious and we're serious. And we have the money.
"The one that gives the biggest bang for our buck is the one that will be successful."
Metro on 07/01/2017