COLUMBIA, S.C. — One of five construction firms competing for the contract to build a new Back River Bridge, connecting Savannah and Jasper County, S.C., is expected to get the project today.
Companies that submitted bids to the Georgia Department of Transportation were Archer Western Contractors LLC and Balfour Beatty Infrastructure Inc., both of Atlanta; Scott Bridge Co. Inc. of Alabama; the Land Construction Corp. of Nebraska; and TIC-The Industrial Co. of Colorado.
Work to replace the 60-year-old bridge is expected to take 24-30 months and will start with a notice to proceed.
“That becomes their construction site,” said agency spokeswoman Jill Nagel. “We oversee it, but they start the project when they want. But they’d have a contract with a completion date, and that’s what we hold them to.”
The $14.7 million project assigns 10 percent of the construction costs to South Carolina. The original bridge, though deemed “structurally deficient” by regulators, is still considered safe and will remain in use until the new bridge is completed.
Meanwhile, anyone who wants to comment on the project has one last chance. The South Carolina transportation agency posted on its website an April 12 deadline to do so.
Georgia held an open house and took public comments about two years ago, Nagel said, and the corps invited public feedback last year.
The new bridge will be located west of the original one and will stand 3 feet higher. It will have a southbound deceleration lane for the exit onto Hutchinson Island and a northbound deceleration lane for an access road on the east side of U.S. 17 in South Carolina.
On Monday an accident injured several people and resulted in the hours-long closure of the Back River and Talmadge bridges. On Wednesday, Savannah-Chatham police spokesman Julian Miller said the accident didn’t affect the bridge itself.
HOW TO SEND COMMENTS
Comments will be accepted until the close of business on April 12.
They may be sent to Mark Pleasant, statewide planning chief at SCDOT, 955 Park St., P.O. Box 191, Columbia, SC 29202
Or to submit them electronically, go to: http://info.scdot.org/Internet/Pages/ContactUs_publiccomment_US17Bridge.aspx.