ST. PAUL, Minn. – The Minnesota Department of Transportation today opened bids for construction of the eastbound stretch of the Wakota Bridge on Interstate 494 between South St. Paul and Newport.

Mn/DOT received four bids for the project, including the apparent low bid of $60.1 million presented by Lunda Construction. Once the bid is certified and awarded, construction will begin in spring 2008 and the bridge will be completed fall 2010. When complete, the eastbound construction will complement the westbound span, which was completed in 2006 and is currently carrying six lanes of two-way traffic.

"It's great to be moving forward on the eastbound river project and completing the Wakota Bridge project," said Lt. Gov. and Transportation Commissioner Carol Molnau. "Mn/DOT is pleased that the next step in the process has happened. We will now be reviewing the bids and completing all the necessary reviews and paper work to award the contract and move forward with construction in April."

The construction of the new Wakota Bridge was part of a $120 million construction contract to reconstruct 3.5 miles of I-494, 0.9 miles of Highway 61 and to build 13 non-river bridges, in addition to the two river bridges. The design of the bridge by the state's design consultant HNTB was completed in 2002. A design flaw was discovered in 2004 and resulted in the subsequent redesign of the bridge. Mn/DOT chose to separate the project and rebid the construction contract for the eastbound span of the new bridge after reaching an impasse in cost negotiations with the project’s construction contractor.

"When protracted negotiations failed to produce a fair settlement to build the eastbound Wakota Bridge, I felt an open and competitive rebidding of this portion of the overall project was the only responsible action to protect the interests of Minnesota taxpayers and the propriety of the state’s contracting processes," said Molnau.

Additional information on the Wakota bid letting is available at http://www.dot.state.mn.us/bidlet/bidresult.html information on the project, including traffic impacts, is available at http://www.dot.state.mn.us/metro/projects/wakota.

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