The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports that the only entity to bid on the replacement of three compromised bridges in the Zoo Interchange, a consortium of Edward Kraemer & Sons Inc., Lunda Construction Co. and Zenith Tech (which also was a prime contractor for the rebuild of the Marquette Interchange), won the contract with a $11.3 million bid to relocate the bridges and adjust the traffic patterns accordingly. During “negotiations” with the Department of Transportation to actually meet the terms of the bid (one and only one weekend full closure per structure, with all remaining shoulder/single-lane closures limited to overnights), that amount rose by $4 million to $15.3 million.
Given that the bid request stated that any bid that contained more than the alloted amount of full closures would be considered “non-responsive”, and that all single-lane/shoulder closures be done during the overnight hours under pain of penalty, why would the cost go up by over 35% to ensure that would happen?
Part of it (????) maybe due to the fact that they’re going to build ‘twin’ bridges-in-place rather than build the bridges and tote ’em over to their places on “Big Switch Day.”
Who knows?