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Multnomah County Commissioners will send to the Department of Justice a proposal to use a construction manager-general contractor procurement model on the $10 million Broadway Bridge project.

Built in 1913, the bridge has a rare Rall bascule lift system that essentially rolls each 2,000 ton section of the bridge on bull wheels. Named after its inventor, Theodore Rall, the system went out of style. The Broadway Bridge is the largest of only three Rall bascule bridges left in the United States.

The project, which will involve replacing four, cracked counterweights that lift the bridge, will be highly risky and complicated, said Michael Pullen, a county spokesman.

The complex nature of the work, which includes aligning the Rall wheels and tracts and correctly locating control struts that guide the rotation of the bridge, prompted the county to consider a CM-GC procurement model, Pullen said.

“We didn’t want to go low bid on this,” he said. “If we hired somebody on a low bid contract and they didn’t do it right, there is a lot of damage they could do.”

Under a new state law that took effect July 1, the Department of Justice must review the bridge project to determine whether it meets state criteria to employ the CM-GC model. If the justice department gives its approve, the county would then move the issue to a public hearing phase before the end fo the year, Pullen said.

If the county does end up using a CM-GC model, design development would start in September and last through July, 2015. The construction contract would be awarded next summer after negotiation of a guaranteed maximum price, Pullen said.

Construction would start in November 2015 and be completed in November 2016, he said.