$67.7M low bid for contract to rebuild portion of Arkansas interstate

A 10.4-mile section of Interstate 530 in Jefferson County known as the Pine Bluff bypass will be rebuilt under a contract for which a low bid worth $67.7 million was opened Wednesday.

It was among 57 projects on which the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department opened low bids worth $139.4 million, including repaving a 61-mile section of U.S. 64, which an agency spokesman said was "one of the longest projects we've done in a long time."

The Pine Bluff bypass project marks the last section of the interstate connecting Little Rock and Pine Bluff to undergo extensive reconstruction or rehabilitation in the past five years, said Danny Straessle, spokesman for the Highway Department.

The route has been the site of at least five other projects worth $164 million since 2012.

When completed sometime in 2019 -- the contractor said the work will take 650 days, or about 21 months -- its road quality will be better than almost every other interstate in Arkansas, save Interstate 540, Straessle said.

"That's huge," said Straessle.

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The low bidder was Webber LLC of Woodlands, Texas. It bested three other contractors whose bids ranged from $71 million to $90.4 million. Webber's bid and the low bids submitted on the other projects won't be final until state highway officials review them for accuracy.

I-530 wasn't designated an interstate until 1999, too late for it to have been eligible for work under the state's initial interstate repair program voters approved the same year. The project is being done under the $1.2 billion interstate repair program voters authorized in 2012.

The Pine Bluff bypass is among several concrete roadways deteriorating prematurely because of a condition known as alkali-silica reaction, or ASR.

The chemical reaction, also called "concrete cancer," produces a gel that results in the "expansion and cracking of concrete elements, leading to a reduction in the service life of concrete structures," according to the Federal Highway Administration.

The condition is a chemical reaction between the alkali content of the cement and silica in the rocks or sand with which it is mixed. Studies have shown the deterioration is negligible when the alkali content is below 0.6 percent.

The U.S. 64 work began as a bridge replacement project, Straessle said. But state highway officials took another look at the route after they determined temporary bridges would have to be built while the existing bridges were replaced, a costly endeavor.

They concluded it would be better to rehabilitate the bridge decks and use the savings to repave the two-lane highway with a 2-inch layer of asphalt, thereby extending the life of both the pavement and the bridge decks, Straessle said.

The 61 miles extend from Arkansas 367 in White County, courses through Woodruff and Cross counties and ends at the Crittenden County line.

The $19.1 million bid by Atlas Asphalt Inc. of Batesville works out to about $314,000 per mile. Four other contractors submitted bids ranging from $21.1 million to $29.5 million.

Metro on 07/20/2017

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