The Georgia Department of Transportation on Friday opened the sealed bids for the complex Courtland Street Bridge replacement project in downtown Atlanta. The team of C.W. Matthews Contracting Company/Michael Baker International is the apparent successful proposer for this important project.
 
The apparent successful bid amount to design and build the replacement Courland Street Bridge is $21 million. After reviewing the Administrative and Technical proposals to ensure conformance requirements, the Department expects to officially confirm the C.W. Matthews team award in early August. The project is funded, in part, by the state Transportation Funding Act of 2015.
 
The project will replace the 110-year old Courtland Street Bridge between Martin Luther King Jr. Drive and Gilmer Street near Georgia State University and the State Capitol. Courtland Street is a major thoroughfare through the downtown Atlanta business district and GSU, and the bridge replacement requires a skilled and innovative approach.
 
Construction is anticipated to begin in early 2018. The C.W. Matthews team anticipates a 14-month construction timeline for the project. Georgia DOT anticipates a full closure of the Courtland Street Bridge next year - restricted to a period between May and November 2018 to lessen impacts to GSU and downtown businesses.
 
The Department used a “best value” procurement approach, incentivizing competition to provide the highest quality construction within a compressed timeframe and for the least cost. Proposers were evaluated equally for their qualifications and bid amounts. C.W. Matthews’ plan involves shorter closure periods, fewer parking impacts to GSU, extensive stakeholder involvement and stronger pedestrian access and safety plans.
 
“We were looking for the best bid, not simply the lowest bid,” said Georgia DOT Public Private Partnership Director K. Joe Carpenter. “In addition to offering exceptional construction services, the selected proposal presents the best plan to minimize impacts to the traveling public and to the downtown community.”
 
The Courtland Street Bridge is one of many statewide projects funded by the TFA. Signed into law in 2015 by Gov. Nathan Deal, the TFA adds nearly $1 billion in additional funding to advance transportation projects throughout the state. It is advancing numerous bridge reconstruction and major mobility projects, improving safety and mobility statewide.
 
Using TFA, Georgia DOT is looking ahead to plan additional statewide bridge modernizations through bridge replacement batches. On Friday, July 21, the Department received construction bids to replace 13 aging bridges using the accelerated Design-Build process in fiscal year 2017, with a total estimated value of $13 million. In June of next year, the Department expects to issue a similar RFQ for 15 additional Design-Build bridge replacements for fiscal year 2018. Many other bridges are being replaced statewide using traditional design-bid-build methods. In total, Georgia DOT plans to replace an estimated 118 bridges and rehabilitate more than 300 between 2016 and 2019 using the increased state funds from the TFA.