Chicago-based Walsh Construction has been named the best option to design and construct Kentucky's portion of the Ohio River Bridges Project, which includes building a new I-65 bridge and reworking Spaghetti Junction.Walsh Construction's $971 million bid was the best financial value and the group says it can finish the project in 1,380 days, or by Dec. 10, 2016.The state's awards committee will meet on Nov. 26th to review the bid in detail and it could--at that time--announce the decision to accept the proposal.From earlier today:The group likely to enter into a contract with Kentucky for its portion the Ohio River Bridges Project will be announced this afternoon.
Kentucky is responsible for building a new I-65 Bridge and reworking Spaghetti Junction. The $2.6 billion project is being split with Indiana, which is responsible for building a new East End Bridge.Kentucky Transportation Cabinet spokesman Chuck Wolfe says this afternoon the bids from three contractor groups will be publicly displayed and there will be an apparent winner of the $1.3 billion contract."I say apparent because as is the case with all of our highway construction bid letting, the bids have to be evaluated, have to be examined," he said.The three groups, which consist of several individual contractor companies, will receive a score from 0 to 100, said Wolfe.Up to 25 percent of the score is on the group’s technical proposal. Five percent is based on using disadvantaged business enterprises, like women or minority-owned businesses, and up to 70 percent will depend on the price proposal including how many days it takes to complete the project—which can at most be 1,947 days, said Wolfe.Officials could take up to 90 days to announce an official contract with one of the three groups bidding, he said.Indiana officials said they’ll announce their state's preliminary winner Friday morning.The Indiana group tentatively awarded the contract must go through a similar approval process before being awarded a contract, including legislative approval and public hearings.The states have divided the cost and work of the project, but both are using different approaches to building and managing their portions.