Hennepin County launches construction season - Finance ...

Posted: 3:57 pm Tue, March 27, 2012
By ?BRIAN JOHNSON
Tags: Hennepin County, Jim Grube, Lowry Avenue Bridge

About $19.7 million worth of work remains on the new Lowry Avenue Bridge in Minneapolis, a big part of the county?s 2012 construction season. (Staff photo: Bill Klotz)

Hennepin County is gearing up for a $41.5 million construction season that includes everything from small patching and sealing jobs to finishing up the Lowry Avenue Bridge in Minneapolis.

The two-year Lowry Avenue Bridge project represents a good chunk of the construction program, which was announced Tuesday.

Jim Grube, director of Hennepin County?s Transportation Department, said $19.7 million worth of work remains on the bridge, including concrete pours, approaches and finishing work in the arches.

The bridge?s overall budget was $104 million, but the final cost is expected to come in about $13 million less than that, as previously reported by Finance & Commerce. Black River Falls-based Lunda is the general contractor.

Scheduled for completion late this summer, the new 1,575-foot Lowry Avenue Bridge replaces a span that was built in 1905; it was closed in 2008 after its piers shifted and demolished in June 2009.

In February, construction crews installed the last of two arches that support the bridge?s main span.

Lowry Avenue isn?t the only bridge project of note in the county.

Less-heralded projects, which are just starting or soon to begin, include a new three-span slab bridge on North Shore Drive over the West Arm Channel of Lake Minnetonka in Orono and the new Lyndale Avenue Bridge over Minnehaha Creek in Minneapolis.

The Orono project, scheduled to begin in June, replaces a structurally deficient bridge. Grube said it?s about $2.5 million worth of work.

?It?s not huge, but when you have to go around a lake or arm of the lake, it certainly gets your attention,? he said.

Early spring weather helped crews get a head start on the Lyndale Avenue Bridge, Grube said. Mild temperatures meant the existing bridge closed for construction in mid-January instead of February as originally planned.

Work has already begun on the bridge, and the road south of the bridge to 56^th Street will be rebuilt beginning in April. The bridge and road work, with a combined budget of $9 million, are scheduled for completion by fall.

Mild weather also benefited the Lowry Avenue Bridge work, and it translated to fewer-than-usual potholes, which is helpful to the county on the maintenance side but doesn?t affect the 2012 construction program, Grube said.

Besides the Lowry Avenue Bridge, other multi-year projects scheduled to wrap up this year include improvements to Excelsior Boulevard in St. Louis Park and Bottineau Boulevard in Crystal.

New projects include concrete rehabilitation on France Avenue from Interstate 494 to Highway 62 and expansion of 85^th Avenue/Weaver Lake Road from Main Street in Maple Grove to Bottineau Boulevard in Brooklyn Park.

Bids for the 85^th Avenue/Weaver Lake Road project recently came in at $8.138 million, about $600,000 below the county?s estimate, Grube said.

The season also includes mill and overlay work on Marshall Street Northeast, Cedar Avenue and Washington Avenue, and patch and seal jobs on Stinson Boulevard and Hennepin Avenue.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 27th, 2012 at 3:57 pm and is filed under Construction & Development, Top Story. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

Source: http://finance-commerce.com/2012/03/hennepin-county-launches-construction-season/

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