The council has also directed that legal action should be pursued to seek to recover past, present and future costs and damages incurred by the city with respect to the Airport Parkway Pedestrian/Cycling Bridge.
The design contract had been awarded to Genivar in 2010 on the basis of best value. The construction contract was then awarded to LW Bray Construction in 2011 but part of the tower had to be taken down after evidence of poor concrete was discovered. Reconstruction was completed by September 2012 at the contractor’s expense. Later in 2012, the construction of the upper tower began, as too did off-site fabrication of the structural stay anchor support.
The contractor informed the city that a new fabricator had to be engaged to build the stay anchor support after fabrication difficulties. The piece built by the new fabricator was delivered to the site in mid-May 2013.
Once the anchor piece was installed at the top of the tower, the contractor faced difficulties placing and aligning it to its final position. At this point, a decision was made to introduce a construction joint so the concrete pour of the upper tower could proceed while the alignment could be investigated further.
As construction continued, concerns were raised by engineers regarding the design of some elements of the bridge. As these issues held potentially serious implications for the completion of construction, as well as ongoing maintenance and management, city staff retained Buckland & Taylor for an independent investigation. The independent review resulted in recommendations for modifications to the original design.
Since then, the contract with Genivar has terminated and the city has engaged Delcan to modify and assume full responsibility for the bridge design moving forward.
This work has resulted in the recommendation that the original design be modified to construct a steel deck cable-stayed bridge. This new all-steel construction will be supported by conventional cable-stays secured to the existing constructed tower. Construction is expected to resume in late spring or early summer of 2014 to be complete for public use in late 2014 or early 2015.
Ottawa has commissioned an independent review by SEG Management Consultants to identify measures aimed at preventing similar problems from occurring in the future.
