Indiana Finance Authority (IFA) chose the WVB East End Partners consortium from a shortlist that also included three other teams. Vinci has put the total value of the contract at about US$1 billion. As well as designing and building the bridge, the consortium will be responsible for the operation, routine maintenance and rehabilitation of the infrastructure for a period of 35 years.
Construction will be carried out by a design-build joint venture of Walsh Construction (60%) and Vinci Construction Grands Projets (40%) with Jacobs Engineering as engineer. Construction is set to start in the summer of 2013 and completion is expected by autumn 2016.
Walsh has also been named this month as the apparent winner of the bid to build Downtown Crossing of the Ohio River Bridges Project, with a construction cost of US$860 million.
IFA said that the US$763m cost of designing and building the East End Crossing is 23% less than previous cost estimates.
The public-private partnership agreement is for a 762m cable-stayed bridge linking Indiana and Kentucky across the Ohio River, a 512m twin-bore tunnel on the Kentucky approach to the bridge and 19 additional bridges, along with associated road improvements and other related infrastructure work.
The shortlists for the projects had been announced in April.
