How much money do construction contractors think it takes to widen Interstate 5 for 2 miles and the 134th Street off-ramp on Interstate 205? That’s what we’ll find out in the next few days.
Bids for construction – stage three of the Salmon Creek Interchange Project – open today at 11 a.m. The Washington State Department of Transportation hopes to award the contract by Monday to the lowest bidder with no technical errors in their proposal, said Allen Hendy, a project manager for WSDOT. He said bids could range between $20 million and $25 million.
The state will post the preliminary results online while it fact-checks the bids.
“We tell them what we want as an end product,” Hendy said. “We stay away from what we call method specifications, because (with them) we can’t take advantage of innovative techniques.”
Hendy says the contractor decides how much the project will cost, what the order of work will be, what strategies they’ll use for construction and how long the project will take. One stipulation is that the old park and ride won’t be available until the new one opens in September. The transportation department also wants the project finished by next summer.
