Washington Bridge rebuild will cost more than expected. Here are McKee's new plans

Rhode Island is going back to the drawing board to figure out how to rebuild the westbound Interstate 195 Washington Bridge.

A week after no companies made a proposal to rebuild the condemned structure, Gov. Dan McKee told reporters Tuesday the state will solicit feedback from the construction industry on what a more realistic timeline and contracting arrangement might be.

Only after that information gathering exercise is complete will the state go back out to bid on bridge reconstruction again, he said.

Department of Transportation Director Peter Alviti Jr. acknowledged that the state's first request for reconstruction proposals "pushed the envelope apparently beyond what the construction industry is willing to bear."

"We asked the bidders to assume more risks than normal to hold them to a very high accountability standard," Alviti said. "And we can't discount the high level of scrutiny and attention that this has been getting and the atmosphere of controversy around this project that may have affected some of the people."

Last December, workers repairing parts of the 1968-built span carrying I-195 West over the Seekonk River discovered severe structural damage and Alviti ordered the bridge closed to traffic as it was at risk of catastrophic collapse.

And now seven months later, McKee administration officials say they do not have any sense of:

• When a new bridge will be built.

• How much it will cost.

• Who will rebuild it.
• How the decades of repair projects failed to maintain the bridge or even identify hidden deterioration within the pre-stressed concrete beams.

The only thing that does appear certain about the bridge project is that all previous cost and time estimates have proven worthless.

In March, when McKee announced that the westbound Washington Bridge would be torn down, the state estimated demolition and reconstruction would cost between $250 million and $300 million. And the new bridge could reopen by August 2026.

Many transportation policy observers and members of the construction industry were skeptical.

By May, the estimated combined cost had risen to $408 million.

Last month, the state chose Aetna Bridge − which originally built the bridge in 1968 − over one other bidder to perform demolition.

If Aetna tears the structure down on time, the contract will pay them $48.8 million including incentives, around $18 million more than the DOT had expected demolition to cost.

Alviti on Tuesday said the delay in awarding a reconstruction contract, however long that delay turns out to be, will not change the terms or expected completion date of demolition, now set for the end of next January.

The "Request For Information" to the construction industry, which will plot a new direction for the bridge reconstruction procurement, is likely to hit the streets by the end of this month, according to Department of Administration Director Jonathan Womer.

But neither McKee nor Alviti Tuesday would provide even a rough guess on when the next request for bids will be issued or whether the new bridge could open in 2026 or even 2027.

"I'm not going to speculate as to the time," Alviti said. "I think the request for information will help us find the acceptable timeframe that companies will need in order to execute the process and create a competitive environment."

The state expects the federal government to pick up 80% of the cost of bridge replacement and this year's state budget included $83.6 million to cover Rhode Island's share. But McKee said the state is also looking at sources to find additional federal dollars.

Another potential source of funding for bridge repairs is legal action against firms or individuals who were involved in its repair over the years.

Earlier this year McKee said a "day of reckoning" for anyone who contributed to the state's predicament was coming soon and hired a team of attorneys to seek damages in court.

But it is not yet clear who the legal team of Max Wistow and Jonathan Savage are targeting or if they have a case.

A forensic analysis of what went wrong with the bridge has also been kept secret to help the legal effort and McKee Tuesday said he is deferring to the lawyers on when and if it will be made public.

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Washington Bridge rebuild will cost more than expected. Here are McKee's new plans