The Missouri Highways and Transportation Commission decided to conclude the original procurement process as the annual payments to MBP would have been higher than budgeted. But it approved plans to improve the bridges.
There will be 554 bridge replacements included in a single design and build package to be advertised this year and awarded in late spring 2009. The remaining 248 will be built using a modified design-bid-build approach under which they will be grouped by type, size or location to accelerate construction schedules.
"The experience of this process tells us that the design-build-finance-maintain approach is very feasible, but for this particular project, at a time of extreme volatility in the nation's credit markets, the requirement for private financing made Missouri Bridge Partner's proposal just too expensive for our budget," said MoDOT director Pete Rahn.
Under the Missouri Bridge Partners plan, MoDOT would have been required to make annual payments that would have ranged between US$65 million and US$74 million, depending on interest rates. "We had budgeted for a $50 million annual payment, using roughly one-third of the federal bridge replacement funds Missouri receives each year," Rahn said. "At a time when we are faced with declining revenues and increasing costs, the Commission was concerned we might not be able to honour our commitments in MoDOT's five-year construction programme if we went forward at a price over our budget."
