2008 Forecast: Infrastructure

Highway work continues to lag behind due to lack of funding

By Candy McCampbell

The infrastructure market outlook for 2008 is more mixed than last year's as plummeting residential construction, coupled with tighter credit, slows other sectors.

Look for increases of only 3 to 7% in construction this year, says Ken Simonson, chief economist with the Associated General Contractors of America.

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Looking good are power plants, transmission lines, communications, hospitals and energy-related projects such as refineries and biodiesel and ethanol plants.

Income-producing projects like retail buildings will continue growing, “but much more slowly,” he says.

High gasoline prices are reducing motorist driving, thereby cutting state tax revenues that generally fund highway construction and maintenance.

“I've not seen any states willing to increase highway tax rates,” Simonson says. Nor does he see federal funds to make up the difference.

There has been talk but no action on bridge repair funds following the I-35 collapse in Minnesota, not even in that state.

And despite all the discussion about airline and airport capacity, available funds are expanding slowly, particularly for runways and taxiways, he says.

Some states, such as Alabama, have already passed bonds to fund massive construction projects, such as $2 billion for schools.

Overall, work there will be sporadic in what Henry T. Hagood Jr., president of Alabama AGC, calls “another average year.”

He expects a 5 to 10% improvement for 2008, which follows “very, very good years” in 2005, 2006 and 2007.

Hagood adds that utility contractors will have plenty of work, thanks to environmental-related work such as the installation of scrubbers at Southern Co. and Alabama Power plants.

Thyssen-Krupp will hire almost 30,000 construction workers for its $3.7 billion steel mill in Mobile, the Alabama State Port Authority is building a $115 million terminal to serve the mill and National Industries is building a $350 million railway car plant near Tuscumbia.

Energy plants continue to sprout up around the central south, with Entergy Nuclear getting federal approval for a possible reactor at its Grand Gulf site in Mississippi and Entergy Corp. winning Louisiana's approval on a $1.5 billion coal-fired power plant near LaPlace.

Al Bargas, president of the Associated Builders and Contractors' Pelican Chapter in Baton Rouge, expects even more nuclear power plants in the future

More immediately, he expects a large share of the recently passed $12 billion in federal funds to come to the state for water infrastructure and levee work.

In Mississippi, Dave Barton, president of the Mississippi Road Builders Association, is “guardedly optimistic” about funding from a new legislature.

U.S. Highway 78 - eventually Interstate 22 - should get some upgrades to serve the $1.3 billion Toyota assembly plant under construction near Tupelo.

And watch for plans by public-private projects to build toll roads, he says.

Some of the major infrastructure projects currently in progress include:

Huey Long Bridge, main span, Harahan, La.The 72-year-old bridge is being widened from two 9-ft lanes with no shoulders to three 11-foot lanes with 2-ft inside and 8-ft outside shoulders in each direction.

This $453 million contract, for work on the main span, calls for the addition of 17,500 tons of new steel trusses to the existing trusses to support the larger load, says Meghan Legaux, TIMED spokesperson.

The contractor is a joint venture of Massman Construction Co. of Kansas City, Mo., Traylor Brothers Inc. of Evansville, Ind., and IHI Inc. of New York

The prefabricated W-shaped support sections will be barged out and raised with a crane for attaching to the existing trusses, says Dana Newsome, TIMED spokesperson.

Traffic will be reduced later this year to one lane in each direction for the work, usually at night, for about six to eight weeks.

The piers were strengthened with more concrete and rebar in Phase I of the four-phase project. This phase started in August and will finish in late 2013.

The bridge sits 150 ft above water and the highest truss rises another 100 ft.

I-10 Bridge over Lake Pontchartrain, Orleans Parish, La.Boh Bros. is working from both sides of Lake Pontchartrain on the low-rise portion of the bridge, which is about 4.5 miles of structure.

Most of this part is about 30 ft above average water level, says G.J. Schexnayder, project manager on the $379 million job.

They are using 36-in prestressed, precast piles and pile caps for the 60-ft wide spans, which will allow three 12-ft traffic lanes and two 12-ft shoulders.

Crews are working from about 20 barges.

Where approaches ramp up to elevation, there will be restraining walls with “reinforcing steel that is cast into the pile cap and protrudes up between the girders,” he says. The restraining wall is poured after the girders are up, locking them to the pile cap.

It will take 119,000 cu yds of concrete and 11,500 tons of reinforcing steel.

Boh is also building the .25-mi bridge approaches.

The westbound span is scheduled for completion in 2009 and the eastbound in 2011, but Boh could get a $4.5 million bonus if it delivers the westbound span by December 2008.

U.S. 90 Bridge over Bay St. Louis, Bay St. Louis, Miss.Workers are finishing requested aesthetic lighting, pulling conduit and wires through the bridge deck for a January completion on this 2.1-mi, $284 million span.

With four traffic lanes, plus pedestrian and bicycle lanes, most of the bridge is 30 to 35 ft above the water, rising to 85 ft at the highest elevation, says Allan Nelson, project manager for Granite Archer Western, the joint venture of Granite Construction Inc. of Watsonville, Calif., and Archer Western Contractors of Atlanta.

He says the real story is the construction pace. Pile driving started in June 2006 and the first two lanes were opened to traffic 10.5 months later.

Part of the bridge is on typical trestle bent pilings, while the other part is on pilings to footings at the water line that are topped with columns and hammerhead caps.

Most of the girders are 154 ft long, weighing about 80 tons.

The bridge is precast or cast-in-place concrete with reinforced steel, consuming about 70,000 cu yds of concrete.

Employment peaked at about 330, but was down to about 190 in November.

I-40 Widening, I-275 to Cherry Street, Knoxville, Tenn.Crews are preparing for the May 1 Interstate 40 shutdown when traffic will be re-routed to I-640 for 13 months, says Jeremy Mitchell, project manager for the joint venture contractors, Bell & Associates Construction LP of Brentwood, Tenn., and Blalock and Sons Construction of Sevierville, Tenn.

During that time, they will widen the highway from two to three lanes in each direction and relocate part of the westbound lanes.

This $104.7 million contract is under the SmartFIX program that allows road closings, saving almost two years on the job. Scheduled completion is June 30, 2009.

Crews are placing fill for the relocated westbound sections, building retaining walls for bridge abutments and getting some bridge footings and substructure done.

Nine bridges are under construction and four others are completed.

They are building 91,000 sq ft of retaining walls and erecting 96,000 sq ft of noise barrier panels.

The project will consume 35,000 cu yds of concrete, 100,000 tons of asphalt, 3,650 tons of structural steel and 3,000 tons of rebar.

Employment, about 200 now, will peak at 500.

Cofferdam Construction at Chickamauga Lock, Chattanooga, Tenn.C. J. Mahan Construction of Grove City, Ohio, has started work on the $83 million cofferdam for construction of a new lock at Chickamauga Dam, 7 mi upstream on the Tennessee River from Chattanooga.

The cofferdam will stretch 1,060 ft by 3,100 ft to enclose the 110-ft by 600-ft lock that will be able to handle nine barges at a time. It will replace a 1930s lock that can take only one barge at a time.

The cofferdam is being built of sheet pilings and drilled shafts, in square sets of fours, that will have a precast box placed atop to form the coffercell, says Jason Pieton, project manager.

The crews are working from barges in the river.

“Working on the water is always a challenge,” Pieton says. “All our work is underneath the water so you can't see where you're working.”

They get an estimated lock traffic schedule each day and plan work around it. Work can continue while barges are moving through the lock.

It will take about a month to pump out about 1 million gallons of water when the cofferdam is completed.

FedEx A-380 Airbus Hangar, Memphis.This $90 million, 140,000-sq-ft maintenance hangar will hold two Boeing 777 cargo planes, with a little room to spare, when it is completed in February 2009.

At 150 ft tall, the hangar will have about 10 ft of clearance from the tailfin of the Airbus A-380 cargo jet and the bottom of the truss, says John Morgan, project manager for Hunt Construction Group of Dallas.

FedEx planned the 281,000-sq-ft complex around the larger A-380 but changed aircraft manufacturers after production delays. It still plans to buy A-380s.

The hangar foundations, drill pier footings and concrete piers are completed and steel erection should be starting now.

The hangar, with 45-ft deep roof trusses, will have a 400-ft clear span. It will be 310 ft wide. Cranes for the hangar, with 330-ft booms, required FAA approval since a runway is 500 yds away.

Also included are a 73,000-sq-ft office building and two pre-engineered metal buildings for a 48,000-sq-ft warehouse and a 20,000-sq-ft shop.

Employment, now about 120, will peak at about 200 this year.

I-65 Paving, from Catoma Creek Bridge to Mill Street Bridge, Montgomery, Ala.This 4.6-mi stretch of heavily traveled Interstate 65 will be widened from two lanes to three lanes in each direction in this $79.6 million job for Brasfield & Gorrie LLC of Birmingham.

The project includes rubblization of the existing concrete - the original roadbed-to use as a base for the new asphalt highway, says Tony Harris, special assistant to the director of the Alabama DOT.

The job will start with widening and shoring up the northbound shoulder, then the southbound shoulder.

Traffic then will be shifted away from the median so the new lanes can be built near the center of the existing roadway.

The median will be replaced by a concrete barrier.

Traffic will move to the new lanes next summer while the existing highway is rubblized and resurfaced.

Work on the five bridges will be underway at the same time.

Some traffic lanes will be narrowed to 11 ft during the job, and lanes will be closed during nights and weekends.

The project started in July; completion is October 2009.