Posted on October 16, 2024
The Maryland Transportation Authority is expected to lease indoor and outdoor storage space from Tradepoint Atlantic for work to clear the remains of the collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge and rebuild the structure.
The agreement will also provide the state with space at the Tradepoint Atlantic global logistics hub at Sparrows Point, formerly home to a Bethlehem Steel mill, to relocate salt and other equipment adjacent to the bridge site.
The three-member Board of Public Works, composed of the governor, treasurer and comptroller, is expected to approve two lease agreements for the storage space during its Wednesday meeting.
With approval from the board, the state will lease 2.7 acres of land for $146,000 per year for the next five years.
The state, through the MDTA — an independent state agency responsible for the state’s eight toll facilities, including the Key Bridge — will also lease about 7,200 square feet of indoor storage space for $75,000 per year during the same time period.
Maryland transportation officials have said they plan to open the new bridge to traffic by October 2028.
In August, officials approved a $73 million contract with one of the country’s largest construction companies to design the new structure.
The contract includes exclusive negotiating rights for construction for the selected team. It’s not yet clear how much construction will cost, but officials have estimated that the total cost to rebuild the bridge will be about $1.7 billion.
The company, Nebraska-based Kiewit Infrastructure, is also under contract with Amtrak to build the Frederick Douglass Tunnel, which will replace the Civil War-era Baltimore and Potomac Tunnel, a deteriorating, chronic-delay-causing tunnel that spans 1.4 miles from Baltimore’s Penn Station to connect city commuters and travelers to Washington, D.C., and Virginia.
To expedite the bridge rebuild, transportation officials have turned to a progressive design-build process, in which the state awarded an initial contract for both engineering and construction, potentially forgoing a competitive bidding process among builders with the hope that the initial team and the state will agree on a guaranteed maximum price before construction starts — about midway through the contract.
Officials have said the project design phase may take about a year and there is an expectation that Kiewit and the state will have a better sense of what the construction costs will be in six or more months, when designing is about 50% to 60% completed.
The new structure is supposed to be built within the collapsed bridge’s right-of-way and have the same four-lane capacity.
The bridge piers still standing over the Patapsco River are expected to be demolished in the fall.
The state is yet to decide what the new bridge will look like.
