Ohio has plan to build second Cleveland Inner Belt Bridge by 2016
Friday, August 24, 2012
Ohio has plan to build Cleveland's second Inner Belt Bridge by
2016
By: Tom Breckenridge, The Plain Dealer
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The construction of the second new Inner Belt
Bridge is back on track for completion by 2016.
Gov. John Kasich and ODOT Director Jerry Wray this morning
announced an unprecedented approach for the estimated $332 million
project.
ODOT will seek a private designer and builder team to demolish
the existing bridge and build the second new bridge.
Normally the state makes sure tax dollars are set aside for a
major road project, then the design is bid out, followed by bidding
out of the construction work.
Using this different approach, the state hopes to accelerate the
project and maybe net some savings.
A lack of money had held up completion of the second new bridge
until 2019. The first of two bridges to replace the existing,
rusting span is on track to open in fall 2013, ODOT said.
Kasich acknowledged the local uproar early this year, when ODOT
announced that money for the second bridge would be delayed.
"They raised Cain, and they should have,'' said Kasich, who
urged Wray to scour ODOT's budget and construction-funding
toolbox to get the Inner Belt Bridge done by 2016.
Kasich and Wray spoke during a morning news conference along
West Third Street in the Flats. Massive, unfinished piers of the
new bridge and the corroding, old bridge loomed in the
background.
In January, the state said that money for the second
bridge would not be available until 2023. The news frustrated area
leaders, including Mayor Frank Jackson.
ODOT later revised the expected completion date to
2019.
ODOT has never bid out and financed such a major project to a
design-build team, but other states have used the approach.
The so-called "public-private partnership'' is allowed under a
state law passed last year.
The state will seek qualified architecture-construction-finance
teams, with the winner paying for $332 million project up front.
The state would pay the team back from 2016-'18.
The Inner Belt project consists of two new spans to replace the
current deteriorating one over the Cuyahoga River Valley. The first
bridge is slated to open in October 2013 and will begin handling
I-90 traffic in both directions.
The existing bridge will be demolished soon after the first
bridge opens, and the second bridge will go up in its place. It
will handle eastbound traffic, while the first bridge will then
handle traffic headed west.