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Maryland approves $75 million contract for Bridging Maryland Partnership to oversee Key Bridge reconstruction. Replacement bridge to be bigger, higher, and completed by October 2028. Demolition activities expected to start in spring 2025. Federal funding secured.
Tue January 14, 2025 - Northeast Edition
The Maryland Board of Public Works approved a $75 million contract Jan. 8 to hire three firms that will oversee construction management services on the Francis Scott Key Bridge over the Patapsco River in Baltimore when the replacement project gets under way this spring.
The companies are part of Bridging Maryland Partnership, a consortium responsible for planning, engineering, surveying, construction management and other duties, Maryland Matters reported.
"The Bridging Maryland Partnership is responsible for ensuring that this bridge is built safely, that it's built sustainably and smoothly and, importantly, as swiftly as possible," said Gov. Wes Moore (D), one of three members of the board along with Maryland State Comptroller Brooke Lierman and Treasurer Dereck Davis.
The consortium is made up of New York-based WSP USA, Johnson Mirmiran & Thompson Inc., an engineering firm based in Hunt Valley; and Rummel, Klepper & Kahl of Baltimore.
The awarded contract calls for "a wide range of professional engineering consulting areas, including transportation planning, project planning, land surveying, public involvement, forestry and landscape architecture, environmental sciences, project management and engineering services," according to documents from the state's Board of Public Works.
A U.S. Coast Guard notice obtained by the Baltimore Sun in late December alerted mariners to construction activity in the Patapsco River starting in January and all the way through to the state's estimated completion of the new Key Bridge in October 2028.
The notice also mentioned "bridge demolition activities," though Bradley Tanner, a MDTA spokesperson, said demolition was not expected to begin until the spring of 2025.
He noted, though, that the schedules for work performed by Kiewit Infrastructure, the project's prime contractor, are "still being refined." The company is based in Omaha, Neb.
It has been just over 10 months since the container ship Dali lost power as it was leaving the Port of Baltimore early on the morning of March 26 and ran into a support helping hold up the Key Bridge, which collapsed into the Patapsco River in a matter of seconds.
The incident killed six road workers who were patching the bridge at the time, pinned the Dali in place and sent thousands of tons of rubble into the Patapsco, blocking the river channel that ships use to get in and out of the busy port. It also severed a major route for truck traffic around Baltimore and shut down a toll road used by more than 30,000 vehicles a day, which annually collected $56 million in tolls.
Federal and state officials immediately vowed to rebuild the bridge, with President Joe Biden pledging that the Washington would fully fund the project. By June, salvage crews had freed the Dali and reopened the shipping lanes to the port, and in August the state awarded a contract to Kiewit Infrastructure.
Current plans call for a replacement bridge to follow the same path as the old bridge, and to be four lanes wide, just as the original bridge was.
But the new Key Bridge is planned to be much higher and wider than the old structure to allow for the possibility of even-larger cargo ships in the future, Maryland Matters reported. Preliminary designs envision a bridge span 230 ft. above the river at its highest point, compared to 185 ft. before, with piers supporting the center span 1,400 ft. apart instead of 1,200 ft.
In order to accommodate the higher span in the same footprint, the new bridge will likely utilize a cable-stayed design as opposed to the truss style found on the old bridge.
The project is expected to cost more than $1.7 billion — some of which has already been recovered in lawsuits filed against the owners of the Dali.
Moore praised the work of the state's congressional delegation, which secured a promise of 100 percent federal funding for the bridge rebuild in December.
The U.S. Army Corp of Engineers (USACE) cleared the shipping channel into the Port of Baltimore in a little more than 11 weeks, instead of the 11 months originally predicted. Additionally, the Maryland Transportation Authority (MDTA) worked "around the clock" to get to this point, the governor said.
"The fact that you moved so expeditiously … gave us a huge sense of confidence in establishing our commitment that we were going to get this done on time and get this done on budget," Moore said at the Jan. 8 meeting. "Because you cannot have a fully functioning Port of Baltimore without a Key Bridge. Full stop."
MDTA Executive Director Bruce Gartner told the board that residents near the bridge can expect to start seeing preconstruction work this month — on land and in the water — where people will see "boats, small barges and small cranes" drilling, collecting soil samples and mapping the river channel.
That work is not expected to significantly disrupt traffic on the roads or in the port channel, he said.
"Probably one of the more anticipated milestones — demolition of the existing piers — is planned for this spring," Gartner explained. "We continue to advance the … preliminary designs and we hope to bring those forth to you to engage on some of those design elements in the very near future."
In turn, board members had few questions, but lots of praise for the project's managers, according to Maryland Matters.
"It's really impressive. It's exciting to get going," Lierman, the state's comptroller, said after Gartner's appearance.