New Interchange 92 percent complete: Sixes Road bridge project on target, five companies submit qualifications for Northwest Corridor Project
By: Janet Pelletier
The Cherokee Ledger-News
A new interchange in Woodstock along Interstate 575 is now 92 percent complete, according to a Georgia Department of Transportation spokesman, and progress also is moving on schedule for the Sixes Road bridge widening in Holly Springs.
“The contractor has finished paving the auxiliary lanes,” GDOT spokesman Mohamed Arafa said. “They are working on stage two of the bridge. With some cooperation from Mother Nature, the entire project will be completed and opened to traffic by the official completion date of Dec. 31, 2012, or slightly ahead of it.”
A mild winter has allowed for the $17 million design-build project to reach completion sooner. Design-build means several processes are being performed at the same time, as opposed to being done in sequence.
Detailed construction updates are being posted by Woodstock Capital Projects Manager Tal Harber on the city’s Web site, www.woodstockga.gov, with a link on the home page.
Harber said in his most recent update July 17 that workers with C.W. Matthews Contracting currently are placing concrete at the abutments of the new bridge to “tie-in” the new beams to the abutments.
“Improvements along Ridgewalk Parkway at the Brookshire subdivision entrance are coming to an end, as well,” he added. “The contractor has just completed the landscape restoration and grassing of the shoulders of the road, so this area should begin to start looking less like a construction site.”
Harber said some delay is occurring along the area of coordination between the interchange project and the new outlet mall, where there has been a lot of activity in recent weeks.
“This will have no effect on the completion of the interchange,” he said.
The 90-store Outlet Shoppes at Atlanta is planned for completion in August 2013.
The full diamond interchange will be constructed where Ridgewalk Parkway currently passes over the interstate. The interchange will break up a roughly 4-mile gap between Sixes Road and Towne Lake Parkway. Plans include the replacement of the existing bridge over I-575, realigning of Old Rope Mill Road to intersect with Ridgewalk and accommodate the ramps of the new interchange, and construction of auxiliary lanes between the new interchange and the Towne Lake Parkway interchange.
SIXES ROAD BRIDGE, GA. 20 IMPROVEMENTS MOVING ALONG, TOO
In Holly Springs, the Sixes Road bridge widening over 575 also is moving swiftly toward a completion date of March 2013.
The project includes about a half-mile of construction of the bridge and its approaches on Sixes over the interstate, as well as the installation of intersection video detection systems (VDS). C.W. Matthews began work on it in May 2011.
“The contractor is currently working on bridge structure,” Arafa said. “The entire project is expected to be completed by the end of March 2013, at a construction cost of $7,968,602.”
Upgrades to the bridge include two through lanes in each direction, two left-turn lanes onto I-575 southbound and a left-turn lane onto the northbound side of the interstate. The northbound exit ramp also will be widened to a two-lane exit, which will increase to four lanes at Sixes Road, allowing for dual left- and right-turn lanes onto Sixes. On the southbound side, the exit will be a single-lane ramp that turns into double lanes at Sixes Road, permitting vehicles to turn left and right. The bridge also will feature raised medians. The city of Holly Springs last year approved $255,000 (coming from Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax funds) for a decorative form liner featuring the city’s logo in a medallion on both the new bridge and the old, as well as fencing and brick-stamped sidewalks.
Improvements are on the horizon in Canton with work being done on Ga. 20. Arafa said the 4.3-mile project of truck passing lanes between Union Hill Road and Greenwood Court is also on schedule for July 2013 completion.
“It is about 69-70 percent complete,” he said of the nearly $8 million project.
FIVE COMPANIES SUBMIT QUALIFICATIONS FOR NORTHWEST CORRIDOR PROJECT
Five organizations have submitted their qualifications to the Georgia Department of Transportation for the Northwest Corridor (NWC) project along interstates 75 and 575 in Cobb and Cherokee counties.
Department officials announced July 19 that the following companies and partnerships submitted their credentials and plans for financing 10-20 percent of the project’s design/build cost, estimated to total $750 million to $850 million:
• Georgia Transportation Partners – comprised of Bechtel Infrastructure Corp., Kiewit Infrastructure South Co., Dewberry and Davis LLC and STV Inc.;
• Fluor-Lane LLC;
• C.W. Matthews Contracting Co., Inc. and the Michael Baker Corp.;
• Northwest Express Road Builders – comprised of Archer Western Contractors, The Hubbard Group and Parsons Corp.;
• Northwest Corridor Mobility Partners – comprised of Ferrovial Agroman S.A.; and
• Prince Contracting LLC.
C.W. Matthews is the contractor working on the Ridgewalk interchange in Woodstock and the Sixes bridge widening in Holly Springs.
The NWC project will build two new managed lanes along the west side of I-75 between its interchanges with I-285 and I-575. The lanes will be separated from the existing interstate and will be reversible so that both will carry traffic southbound during morning commute hours and northbound in the evenings. Above the I-575 interchange, one new reversible lane will be added in the I-75 center median to Hickory Grove Road and a similar new I-575 lane will extend to Sixes Road.
The total length of the project is approximately 30 miles. A variable-rate toll, based on traffic volume, will be assessed for access to the lanes.
Georgia DOT will develop a “short list” of firms from these submittals to receive a project Request for Proposals (RFP) in December. RFP responses will be due next June, and GDOT said it expects to select its “best value” design/build contractor the following month.
Construction activities tentatively would begin in the summer of 2014 and the Northwest Corridor would open to traffic in the spring of 2018.
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