The Sellwood Bridge replacement project is continuing to receive honors.

Slayden Construction of Stayton and partner Tempe, Arizona-based Sundt Construction were jointly recognized by the Associated General Contractors of America last week for their role in construction of the project estimated to cost $324 million. The award was given out at AGC‘s annual convention in New Orleans.

The bridge, which opened to traffic in 2016, was chosen by AGC as the recipient of its Construction Risk Partners Build America Award for best new highway and transportation project. The original 1925 structure was replaced with an entirely new bridge, which was built next to the original before being moved into place. The new bridge features an open steel deck arch structure, and meets current seismic regulations. It also has 12-foot-wide sidewalks and a pair of bicycle lanes.

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One of the most expensive and intensive transportation projects in Portland in recent memory was honored by the American Council of Engineering Companies’ Oregon chapter on Wednesday. The organization named the Sellwood Bridge replacement, as submitted by T.Y. Lin International Group, its project of the year for 2016 during its annual awards ceremony.

“It is a great honor anytime you spend all the years we have spent on this,” said David Goodyear, chief bridge engineer for T.Y. Lin International. “It’s what we work for: a happy client and recognition for the works we do.”

T.Y. Lin International served as the lead architect for the nearly $320 million project – the costliest for Multnomah County at the time it moved forward. The firm also served as the lead structural engineer responsible for bridge design alternatives, and as the engineer of record for the replacement bridge. In addition, T.Y. Lin International oversaw bridge, roadway, architectural, electrical, environmental permitting, geotechnical and landslide stabilization design teams. The firm also led the quality control program for the bridge, which opened to traffic in February 2016.

“The project was unique,” Goodyear said of the Sellwood Bridge replacement. “The size doesn’t always mean the most complex. The logistics of this project were challenging. Being able to put together this project from the multiple stakeholders was a big accomplishment.”

Engineers had to figure out how to replace a 1,971-foot-long bridge that spanned the Willamette River. The original 1925 bridge was deemed unsafe when cracks were discovered in January 2004.

The challenges began almost the minute the project did. The team committed to building the new bridge in almost the exact same spot as the original. That meant moving the old bridge 33 feet at the east end and 66 feet on the west end so that it could continue to serve traffic.

“We moved the old bridge over, so it was a challenge,” said Ian Cannon, Multnomah County engineer and transportation director. “Then, after that, we had to build the new bridge with the west end in an active slide area.”

The design team settled on a replacement that stretches 1,976 feet, includes three steel arches supporting a 64-foot-wide deck, two vehicle lanes, two sidewalks and two bike lanes. The project also required modernization of Oregon Route 43 and stabilization of the hillside to the west and above the bridge and highway. The hillside’s slow slide into the river was one of the key reasons the original bridge deteriorated in the first place.

“There were a lot of geotechnical landslide specialists that worked with us,” Goodyear said.

A foundation was designed that would support the deck arch against the hillside. The design team used 3-D modeling to develop a way to anchor a shear pile that included boring 40 six-foot-diameter shafts vertically to depths of 56 to 88 feet. Then they used 70 pre-stressed ground anchors drilled diagonally to depths of 85 to 110 feet into bedrock. The system interacts with the 10-foot-diameter drilled shafts of the arch foundations to counteract further movement.

In addition, seismic goals had to be met. The new bridge needed to be designed to endure a magnitude 9 Cascadia subduction zone earthquake.

T.Y. Lin International has a long history of designing bridges in seismically active regions. The company was the design engineer for the Tilikum Crossing. It also was a lead designer for the new eastern span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as well as multiple bridges in Southern California.

“Building bridges in seismically active areas is kind of our stock and trade,” Goodyear said. “We do a lot of bridges on the West Coast.”

Goals for seismic strength impacted every decision made about construction of the new bridge.

“It controlled how we developed foundation design,” Goodyear said. “The types of foundations we used were selected for their robustness. It governed where the bearings went and were fixed to the foundations.”

Usually a flat horizontal surface is sought for bridges, but that wasn’t possible for the Sellwood Bridge. The bridge’s course takes it uphill. That means the arch spans could not be in balance geometrically. It affected the differential thrust across the interior piers.

“If you look at the arches, the one on the west is smaller,” Goodyear said. “As you ascend the slope, you have different tensions. You have to design it so the thrust on the right and left have to be balanced.”

Another priority for the project team was ensuring that river navigation would be uninterrupted, even during construction. That required not just engineering skill, but coordination.

“The coordination of all the pieces of work that went on was great,” Cannon said. “Working around the different partner agencies was a challenge. We had to work with Portland Parks, the (Oregon Department of Transportation) and others.”

Also, sensitivity to environmental concerns limited when construction could take place.

“Anytime you are working in the water, things are tough,” Goodyear said. “There are environmental limitations. In terms of design we try to minimize the impacts of the foundation we are putting in the water.”

Concrete pours were a tall order. Some 8,200 cubic yards of concrete were used for the bridge’s four immense foundations. Completion of one such foundation required 24 hours. Also, a cooling system had to be devised so that the concrete would not overheat.

Ted Aadland, area manager for Sundt Construction, which oversaw physical construction of the new bridge, said it was the kind of challenge that builders and designers look for.

“We had big piers in the middle of the river,” he said. “There was a limit in pile driving and the amount we can drive. The designers were working on the longest spans they could. That brings a little more flavor to the job and it makes it a little more fun.”

Aadland said he expects the project to become a career highlight for everyone associated with it.

“It’s an iconic job,” he said. “It’s a great looking structure. It’s one I think everybody who worked on it will remember forever.”

2017 ACEC Oregon Engineering Excellence Awards

T.Y. Lin International won the top honor from the American Council of Engineering Companies’ Oregon chapter during its awards dinner Wednesday night, for the Sellwood Bridge replacement project. However, many other companies were recognized. They include:

Best in emergency and water resources

GeoEngineers Inc.: Sanpoil SR21 emergency spill response for Able Clean-up Technologies Inc. / CHS Inc.

Best in transportation

OBEC Consulting Engineers: Sunrise Expressway for Oregon Department of Transportation

Grand awards

Aspect Consulting LLC: Port Angeles landfill stabilization for city of Port Angeles

Cascade Earth Sciences: Monte Cristo Mining Area removal action for U.S. Forest Service

Cornforth Consultants Inc.: US 20 – Pioneer Mountain to Eddyville for Oregon Department of Transportation

Harper Houf Peterson Righellis: Hassalo on Eighth for GBD Architects

Hart Crowser Inc.: Forest Park low tank for Portland Water Bureau

HDR: Bridge Creek Water Supply and Treatment Plant for city of Bend

Shannon & Wilson Inc.: Ridgewood View Park Reservoir and Pump Station for Tualatin Valley Water District

Small project

Otak: Rockinghorse Lane drainage improvement for city of Lake Oswego

Judges’ choice

Kittelson & Associates Inc.: Oregon Avenue protected bike lane for Sky Lakes Wellness Center

Honor awards

AECOM: Light rail transit efficiency projects for Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority

Akana: Tsaile Dam rehabilitation for U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs

AKS Engineering & Forestry: Columbia Street regional stormwater facility for city of Sherwood; and Evergreen Drive improvements for city of North Bonneville

Century West Engineering: Redmond Municipal Airport runway 4-22 rehabilitation for city of Redmond – Redmond Municipal Airport

GHD: Harriett powerhouse for Portland General Electric

Harper Houf Peterson Righellis: Daimler North America headquarters for Ankrom Moisan Architects; and Monterey Avenue extension for Clackamas County Development Agency

Integral Consulting Inc.: EVRAZ Oregon Steel riverbank stabilization

Otak: Tenny Creek emergency repair for Clark Regional Wastewater District

Parametrix: Powell Butte Highway roundabout for Deschutes County

PBS Engineering & Environmental: Sixth and Norwood intersection roundabout for city of Camas, Washington; and Vancouver waterfront transportation improvements for city of Vancouver, Washington

WHPacific: Oregon Route 99W – Gaarde McDonald intersection improvements for Oregon Department of Transportation and city of Tigard

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Ted Aadland’s favorite bridge is whichever one he just helped build. In this case, it’s the new Sellwood Bridge, where work is due to wrap completely in mere weeks.

Multnomah County originally brought on Aadland to consult on the construction manager-general contractor delivery method. He was later asked by half of the joint venture that won the bid, Sundt Construction, to be its representative in Oregon during the project. That gig came about through a personal connection with the Arizona firm’s president and chairman, J. Doug Pruitt, who Aadland succeeded as national president of Associated General Contractors in 2010.

91ĘÓƵ: Why is the Sellwood your favorite bridge?

Ted Aadland: Well, it’s a large project and I’ve been on it almost six years now, from the inception of it. Just watching it come together and getting built. I know every problem and headache, and how we solved it all and moved ahead. I mean, I’m ready to get away from it, but at the same time, we’ve taken on every challenge. We’ve done everything that had to be done, and we got it completed. So that’s my favorite bridge. My next favorite bridge will be the next one I’m on. It’s always that way.

91ĘÓƵ: Will it be your last bridge?

Aadland: Oh, who knows? I keep saying that, but then somebody says, “I need you over here.” And I haven’t been very good at saying no. I do plan to take some time and do a little traveling and live up to the promises I made my wife over the years. So that is the future.

91ĘÓƵ: You’re a proponent of using CM-GC, when appropriate. Why is it a good method for a bridge project?

Aadland: CM-GC is a great way to do it when you have the right team and everybody’s thinking project-first. You’ve got the expertise of the owner, the architect and the contractor – all working together for the betterment of the job, which helps the taxpayer get the biggest bang for their buck.

91ĘÓƵ: The Oregon Department of Transportation says half of Oregon’s bridges rated “critical” will collapse in a magnitude 8 earthquake. What needs to be done?

Aadland: ODOT has a system where, if there’s a catastrophe, they know which contractors to call to get ’em out immediately and start fixing things. And ODOT looks at every bridge every two years. They’ve got ’em on a scale and they know the bridges that they really need to bring up to standards for an earthquake.

But money’s a problem. They can’t do seismic retrofits on all the ones they’d like. And there’s bridges they’d rather replace than fix – that sometimes figures in. Why spend the money on it when we want to replace it here in the next couple years? But I think, all in all, ODOT’s done a really good job of looking at the structures, knowing the shape they’re in and what their needs are.

91ĘÓƵ: And that’s just the bridges that the state maintains. Oregon’s cities and counties maintain thousands more. What should localities be doing to upgrade their bridges?

Aadland: They have to follow the same procedures of having their bridges checked every two years. I think the bigger difference with the counties and cities is sometimes, politics sometimes play a bigger part in, you know, where the priorities are than they do with ODOT. It’s a big responsibility and I think most of the cities and counties really try to do a good job with it.

91ĘÓƵ: Planners have identified the Burnside Bridge as a “lifeline,” but significant repairs must be made. Do you think it should be replaced? And what about the rest of Portland’s iconic-but-costly-to-maintain pre-1970s bridges – should they be replaced?

Aadland: All bridges have life spans. We always said that life span was 50 years, and they’re stretching it out to 100 years now – and that’s really stretching it. There’s fatigue, there’s wear, there’s a lot that goes into bridges. I think they’re all going to have to be replaced in time. The replacement of the Burnside is a top priority for Multnomah County, and I know that it’s the next big, major project that they’re going to be looking at.

It’s a real link in the city and it’s going to be hard to shut it down and divert traffic. We’re getting more and more people in the area. And as it grows, it gets harder and harder to detour traffic around all the new projects.

91ĘÓƵ: There’s also the issue of bridge maintenance. What are Oregon’s biggest bridge maintenance needs?

Aadland: Our biggest needs are on the smaller, older bridges. We have to look at those first. People forget how old some of our bridges are. A lot of them were built in the ’50s and ’60s. They’ve passed the 50-year mark and are heading for the 100-year.

91ĘÓƵ: Will the bridges of the future require less maintenance?

Aadland: Well, for instance, the Sellwood Bridge is built out of weathering steel. It’s a steel that actually rusts and oxidizes, and protects itself. Even if it’s scratched, it re-rusts and protects itself. They’re using better and better materials to ensure longer-lasting structures, structures that don’t require a lot of maintenance but will last (many) years.

91ĘÓƵ: You’ve done a lot of work around the West. How is Oregon’s approach different from other states in terms of seismic readiness?

Aadland: That’s pretty hard to judge. I think California, where I’ve done quite a bit of work, pays a lot more attention to seismic than either Oregon or Washington. I’m not saying Oregon and Washington aren’t paying attention – I don’t think we’re as strong on it as California because we haven’t had the earthquakes.

91ĘÓƵ: What did you take from your experience as a combat engineer in the Vietnam War to your career in heavy civil?

Aadland: That was a situation where we were moving goods and we just had to keep things going. You just had to push and make it happen. There were so many elements to stop you – from people shooting at you, to mortars and mines that you had to be afraid of and look out for. Every day was a hard push, and I think it really taught me that if you’re going to accomplish something, you have to work hard at it. You make it happen. It doesn’t just happen on its own. Vietnam taught me that more than anything.

91ĘÓƵ: The labor shortage is a major issue for the AGC. Did you sense this was in the future during your tenure?

Aadland: It’s been something on the radar screen for quite a while. In the early 2000s at AGC, we were really pushing to get more apprentices, and of course what killed us was the big downturn in 2007-2008. And a lot of the apprentices, and even people who’d been in the industry for years, there wasn’t any work and we lost them. We totally lost a generation of people, and we’re feeling it now.

Every place you go, they’re looking for people. Normally we have a glut of people at this time of year, and now there’s such a shortage. It is a real problem. Some major projects are about to get started in the area and they’re just going to suck up the available people. We’re very concerned about where we’re going to get talent.

91ĘÓƵ: What should be done?

Aadland: We just really need to find a way to get more training programs out there. I’m a little bit bothered when all of us in the industry are searching for good people, and at the same time we’re hearing that we’ve got a homeless issue and lots of people can’t find work. Somehow we need to figure out how to pull some of those people out of that realm of homelessness, get ’em trained, get ’em to a place where they can be productive and recapture their life and work and go forward.

91ĘÓƵ: Bridge builders are the artists of the engineering world. Who are the ones you admire?

Aadland: (Ralph) Modjeski really did a great job. And (Conde B.) McCullough, of course. He built all the bridges up and down the coast of Oregon, and his structures are all pieces of art. I got to redo the Newport Bridge, and we were able to go in there and save that bridge from coming down, and that was exciting.

You know, when you get in there and look at ’em and their design and everything that goes into them, they’re pretty fantastic. They’re pretty exciting.

91ĘÓƵ: Even the modern ones? I doubt anyone would ever get a tattoo of the Marquam Bridge. They seem kind of boring – what do you think?

Aadland: I think they’re utilitarian, you know. The Marquam Bridge, bridges on the interstate – we were more concerned with building the interstate and pushing on through. We’re building structures that have to fit where they go. Nobody was thinking about building a monument.

So yeah, maybe they are a little on the boring side, but each of ’em, from my view, is very challenging. You’ve got all the different aspects, like the foundations out in the middle of the river, the high water, the coffer dams. You’ve got to put the whole thing together, and have the highest possible quality, and do it all without hurting anybody. You’ve got to know your scheduling and your subs – it’s like being an orchestra leader. If you’re not a good orchestra leader, even the best musicians won’t play good music for you.

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The latest phase of the years-long process of building a new Sellwood Bridge is removing the old one. With the new, 1,976-foot-long, steel-deck arch bridge now up and operational, crews with Emmert International will spend the next few months removing sections of the old, four-span continuous truss bridge that for nearly a century connected the Sellwood neighborhood with Southwest Portland.

On Friday, the first of four sections was cut free, lowered with hydraulic jacks and hauled away by barge. The concrete has been stripped off the old green bridge, and all that remains is a skeleton about 18 to 20 feet tall.

Because the bridge is historic, the county was required to ask the public if anyone wanted all or part of it. Since no one responded to the offer, the contractor assumed control of the bridge. The scrap dealer in this case is Schnitzer Steel, a Portland metals recycler. The bridge will likely be shredded and then taken to a different facility to be melted down.

“The value of that steel is built into the demolition cost, so it’s not like a windfall of money to the contractor; it’s kind of built into the cost,” said Mike Pullen, spokesman for Multnomah County, the entity in charge of most Portland-area bridges. “If they had found someone who wanted the bridge, they would have made a lot of money.”

That person would have gotten the bridge for free, but they would have needed a plan to move it safely and without harming the environment. There were a few bites, Pullen said, but no serious offers.

“We had a few international inquiries, and I think some things were lost in translation,” he said. “We got an inquiry from Germany and the guy wanted us to send the bridge to Africa for him. I think he thought we would deliver it for free, which is not the case.”

Heavy-haul specialist Emmert is an engineering firm known for moving overweight and oversize cargo, notably a NASA Space Shuttle External Tank, several 640-ton steam generators for nuclear reactors, and a ferry boat – from Utah to Canada.

Planning for the project to replace the Sellwood Bridge began in 2006. Though the new bridge is operational, work will continue through the summer. In July, in-water work can begin for the season. Hundreds of support pieces and piles buried in the riverbed must be removed. And on the river’s west side, the contractor – a joint venture between Stayton and Sundt – is working on a bicycle/pedestrian pathway set to open later this month.

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Crews on the Sellwood Bridge project are now preparing for the upcoming removal of the four continuous steel truss spans of the old bridge. Removal of concrete from the old deck was completed earlier this month, and general contractor Slayden/Sundt Joint Venture and steel removal subcontractor Emmert International are installing hydraulic jacks that will be used in the disassembly of the old truss span.

The span will be removed in a total of nine pieces, four of which will measure approximately 80 feet long and will be lowered to a barge by hydraulic jack. The other smaller pieces will be lowered using a barge crane. Each of the four 80-foot sections will take approximately two weeks to remove, and will be cut from the span by Slayden/Sundt crews using thermic cutters. Steel pans and welding blankets will be used to contain debris, as will a barge positioned below the workers.

The steel pieces will be shipped downriver to Schnitzer Steel for recycling. When the span removal is completed in July, the contractor will begin removal of in-water piles and support pieces.

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The Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries has fined a flagging subcontractor $25,491.34 for falsifying records while working on a road project on Southeast Lake Road in Milwaukie.

Evan Williams has operated a flagging business under a variety of identities, including Tri-Star Flagging, Portland Flagging and AD Traffic Control Services. Those names and several others associated with Williams are now on the list of companies ineligible to work on public projects in Oregon.

From late 2011 through the second quarter of 2012, Williams was found to have violated Oregon’s prevailing wage law by withholding fringe benefit wages from the paychecks of 13 employees, but not depositing the money in their fringe benefit accounts.

According to the final order signed by BOLI Deputy Director Christine Hammond, Williams defended himself during the proceedings by saying he intended to pay his workers all they were owed by the end of the quarter.

“At the time that the (certified payroll) reports were signed it was my intent to pay the fringes on a quarterly bases [sic] and I always prepared to do so,” Williams wrote in his response to BOLI’s request for summary judgment. “It came down to me making a decision to do what I felt was best at the time.”

Previously, BOLI recovered $104,000 in fringe benefit wages for 37 Tri-Star employees who worked on road improvements on the Sellwood Bridge.

Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian last month filed a civil rights complaint against Williams for allegedly retaliating against whistle-blowing employees, making threats of physical violence, and employing other unlawful employment practices. That matter is still being investigated by BOLI.

Reached by phone, Williams said, “Write whatever you want about me. I don’t care.

“You know what? Avakian’s a puppet for the labor union – that’s my comment. Alright, you have a great day.”

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Tilikum Crossing, since opening Sept. 12, is approaching the 2 million mark for passenger traffic.

Users have crossed the car-free bridge an estimated 1,765,790 times (about 11,400 times per day), according to data gathered from various transportation agencies. The figure includes bus and MAX light-rail trips, Portland Streetcar trips and crossings by bicyclists. It does not count Tilikum Crossing trips by pedestrians; those aren’t tracked by any agency.

The Burnside Bridge, by comparison, hosts about 40,000 vehicle trips a day.

More than five months after opening, the futuristic multimodal Tilikum Crossing south of downtown is attracting daily use by Portlanders.

The MAX orange line carries the most people over Tilikum Crossing, with approximately 866,000 user trips since September. TriMet‘s buses have carried 629,000 users over the bridge.

Portland Streetcar does not count ridership over the bridge, but it does count passengers boarding and disembarking at stops near the bridge. On weekdays, about 90 passengers board near the bridge, and 100 disembark, said Julie Gustafson, spokeswoman for Portland Streetcar.

Before Tilikum Crossing was open, many passengers would disembark before the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, Gustafson said. Now, that area is becoming a popular place to board the streetcar for trips downtown.

System-wide, Portland Streetcar is gaining riders as transportation options increase.

“We’re definitely growing,” Gustafson said. “It’s exciting.”

Bicyclists have been using the bridge too, although not as much as some other Rose City spans. Tilikum Crossing has clocked 259,000 bike trips since September. On an average weekday, 1,691 bicyclists cross the bridge – far fewer than the 5,397 who cross the Hawthorne Bridge.

Holger Link, a pediatrician at Oregon Health & Science University, rides his bike over Tilikum Crossing each weekday. He said the new bridge saves him only about 3 minutes each way, but it provides a much better experience.

“I love it,” he said. “I think it’s a beautiful bridge, and I enjoy not having to go across Hawthorne Bridge with the buses and cars.”

Link may not be the only bicyclist forsaking Hawthorne for Tilikum: the Hawthorne Bridge saw a 39 percent drop in January bicycle traffic compared to a year earlier.

Link said his only complaint about Tilikum Crossing is the bicycle stoplight could be better timed when the light is triggered by buses.

“Sometimes you have to wait a long time,” he said.

All users are getting used to the flow of the car-free bridge, said Rob Sadowsky, executive director of the Bicycle Transportation Alliance.

“How we handle that interaction between streetcar, bus, bike – people are starting to figure that out,” he said.

The commute-time crush can be tough at the bridge’s west end, Sadowsky said.

“At times of day, the number of pedestrians coming out of the Collaborative Life Sciences Building can be daunting to navigate,” he said.

It remains to be seen how new South Waterfront development, including Zidell Yards, will affect traffic. And the Sellwood Bridge will reopen March 1, giving commuters another option to traverse the Willamette River.

Perhaps most importantly, Tilikum Crossing has encouraged some residents who previously avoided public transportation to try it.

Sadowsky pointed to his own in-laws as an example. They didn’t feel comfortable taking the bus from Sellwood to downtown.

Now, he said, “they take the orange line all the time to get downtown. They saw it as a doable and enjoyable experience.”

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An Oregon City flagging company owner threatened his whistle-blowing workers with violence, according to a complaint filed last week by Oregon Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian.

The Bureau of Labor and Industries claims Evan Williams fired employees as retaliation for revealing wrongdoing by his company, and prevented other employees from doing the same, among other alleged unlawful business practices.

Williams is connected to corporate entities named Tri-Star Flagging LLC, A D Traffic Control LLC, Portland Flagging and others.

“There’s a whole list of names that are essentially the same company,” BOLI spokesman Charlie Burr said. “And several of them have already been placed on the debarment list.”

The matter will now move through BOLI’s bureaucracy – going first to the civil rights division, where investigators will look for “substantial evidence.” If found, the parties would have another opportunity to settle in a conciliation phase. If no agreement is reached, BOLI’s administrative prosecution unit would look to bring the case before one of BOLI’s administrative law judges. The judge could send a final order to the labor commissioner. In this instance, because it was Avakian who filed the initial complaint, the order would go to BOLI’s second-in-command, deputy director Christie Hammond.

BOLI has already recovered $104,000 in fringe benefit wages for 37 Tri-Star employees who worked on the Sellwood Bridge replacement project.

Another BOLI decision against Williams is pending; the agency late last year sought $94,000 in penalties for failure to fully pay workers on the bridge project, as well as intentional filing of inaccurate payroll records. BOLI added Tri-Star to the list of businesses ineligible to work on public projects in Oregon.

Burr said most investigations of this nature last between four and six months. BOLI is statutorily obligated to finish them within one year.

Avakian, Oregon’s labor commissioner since 2008, has now filed eight civil rights complaints.

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Stayton-based Slayden Construction Group has been purchased by a global construction firm. MWH Constructors, a subsidiary of MWH Global, confirmed its latest acquisition Friday, though the deal became effective Jan. 1.

“While the deal was effective on the first of the year, we wanted to ensure communication was given to all clients and internal operating groups before sharing the news externally,” MWH spokeswoman Faithe Gorman-Smith wrote to the Daily Journal of Commerce. “We are formally distributing the announcement this week.”

Slayden and its 140 employees will move forward as “Slayden Constructors Inc.” Additional sale terms were not disclosed.

Slayden had $67 million in gross billings in the Portland area in 2013, the last year for which figures are available. The company was founded in 1984 and has since tackled work in a variety of sectors ranging from heavy civil to environmental. However, in recent years it has focused primarily on environmental projects – specifically dam removal, fish ladders and hatcheries, and public water and wastewater projects.

Slayden and Arizona-based Sundt are teaming up to handle general contractor duties for the $307.5 million project to replace the Sellwood Bridge. The Slayden/Sundt joint venture in January 2015 filed suit against that project’s owner, Multnomah County, for allegedly providing inaccurate information resulting in cost overruns totaling $10 million.

MWH is an offshoot of MWH Global, a Broomfield, Colo.-based environmental consultancy group with around 1,000 employees based in the U.S. and 630 in the United Kingdom.

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When the Sellwood Bridge opened in 1925, it was Portland’s first to serve only motor vehicles and not streetcars. Now, concrete will soon be poured twice as thick in parts of the new Sellwood Bridge to ensure that it’s “streetcar ready” should that infrastructure ever be called for.

The $317 million new bridge is now about 80 percent complete, with about one year of work remaining. It’s the costliest project in Multnomah County history, and much of the heavy work is already done, county spokesman Mike Pullen said on a site walk-through last week.

The old bridge is being used to detour traffic, though it stands on temporary piers after being moved 66 feet north during construction. But no more traffic closures will take place in 2015, Pullen said.

Between 150 and 200 workers with various firms are at the site most days. Lately, many have been preparing the rebar mats ahead of 10 sections of concrete pouring. A Terex bid-well machine sits poised over the width of the bridge deck, ready to set the crown of the road so that water drains downhill and toward the shoulders.

A dog park and other amenities have been built to offset environmental impacts. This week, traffic signals will go in, but won’t be turned on until next year. The project also includes bank stabilization on the west side of the Willamette River, off of Macadam Avenue (Oregon Route 43).

“We started with a broken bridge, and the project’s grown to include about a half-mile of state highway,” Pullen said.

Construction challenges have included scheduling work around needs of a species of migratory fish, and securing property from five homeowners. But perhaps the biggest difficulty has involved managing traffic on the heavily-used crossing, Pullen said; approximately 30,000 motor vehicles cross it each weekday.

“It’s always a challenge to construct a new bridge while keeping traffic moving,” he said. “We’ve been shifting traffic around a lot.”

Before the first bridge was built, a real estate company in 1882 began offering a free ferry to the burgeoning Sellwood neighborhood to attract potential buyers. Twenty-one years later the Sellwood City Council approved funding the John F. Caples ferry off of Spokane Street, near where the bridge stands today. (Both of the old landings can still be seen from the bridge.)

In the early 1920s, following a sordid development phase highlighted by scandal – detailed on the bridge project’s website, sellwoodbridge.org – Multnomah County commissioners selected famous bridge builder Gustav Lindenthal to design the crossing. He chose an unusual design – a steel, four-span, continuous riveted Warren Deck truss with verticals, making it the city’s first high bridge without a movable span and the only one of its kind in Oregon.

Built with pieces of the old Burnside Bridge, the Sellwood Bridge also was the first in Portland without trolley tracks, and thus had a lighter weight load. Over time, buses and trucks weighing more than 10 tons taxed the bridge, causing concrete girders to crack and railings to sag. Plastic netting now covers the damage in places, though such patches have ceased because of construction.

Other problems were still evident this month. The bridge has only one four-foot-wide sidewalk for pedestrians and bicyclists, and neither shoulders nor a median.

Conceptual work for the new Sellwood Bridge began in 2006, and construction started in 2012. It will be 64 feet wide at its narrowest, with two 12-foot-wide travel lanes, two 12-foot-wide shared-use sidewalks and two 6.5-foot-wide bike lanes. Sculptures will adorn concrete piers along the travel lanes of Tacoma Street between Southeast 6th Avenue and Southeast Grand Avenue. The general contractor is a joint venture of Slayden Construction of Stayton and Sundt Construction of Tempe, Ariz. It was designed by T.Y. Lin International.

Though thousands of drivers have been affected by the road closures, they have received appreciation from nearby residents, Pullen said.

“They said (the road closures were) kind of nice,” he said. “Like it was their own private village.”

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