A weekly compilation of the largest winning bids in the Pacific Northwest, according to the Daily Journal of Commerce Project Center.

1.

Winner (contract awarded): Gentry Civil Corp. of Emmett, Idaho

Amount: $7,338,946

Project: 21st Avenue Sewer Bypass Project (Caldwell, Idaho)

Owner: City of Caldwell

Cost estimate: not available

Project team: Bowen Collins & Associates

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2.

Winner (contract awarded): Western United Civil Group of Yacolt, Washington

Amount: $187,828

Project: Boyse Park Pump Track (Ridgefield, Washington)

Owner: City of Ridgefield

Cost estimate: $265,348

Project team: PBS Engineering and Environmental

3.

Winner (contract awarded): Otis Elevator of Tigard

Amount: $165,985

Project: Community Center Elevator Modernization (McMinnville)

Owner: City of McMinnville Engineering Department

Cost estimate: not available

Project team: not available

4.

Winner (contract awarded): Castle Construction of Gates

Amount: $145,000

Project: Odell Lake Sand Shed Repair (Crescent)

Owner: ODOT Facilites Management Section

Cost estimate: not available

Project team: not available

5.

Winner (contract awarded): Wildish Standard Paving Co. of Eugene

Amount: $126,850

Project: Major Bridge Maintenance Concrete Girder Repairs (Lane County)

Owner: Oregon Department of Transportation

Cost estimate: not available

Project team: not available

Do you want to be the winner of an upcoming Top Bidders project? Then join the 91ĘÓƵ Project Center to find, track and bid on your next project. For a free tour, or more information on monthly and annual rates, contact Sharlene Richard at 503-802-7252 or srichard@djcOregon.com.

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Construction has begun on Flanders Crossing, Portland’s newest span.

Minor work began in late June on the pedestrian and bicycle bridge spanning Interstate 405 in Northwest Portland, the Portland Bureau of Transportation announced. Contractor Wildish Standard Paving Co. will begin major work on the project this month.

The $9.5 million bridge will function as an overpass for pedestrians and cyclists between the Pearl and Northwest districts. The project is funded by ConnectOregonĚýgrant funds and transportation system development charges.

The 200-foot-long span will consist of a single prefabricated steel truss anchored on either end by drilled shafts. The bridge’s 24-foot-wide concrete deck will hold four lanes for cyclists and pedestrians traveling in each direction. It is designed to accommodate use by emergency vehicles in the event of a major earthquake.

The project includes new traffic signals at Northwest 14th and 16th avenues, and a four-way stop sign at Northwest 15^th Avenue to provide bridge access. The project will require a five-week closure of the Northwest Glisan Street off-ramp early next month, as well as a closure of Interstate 405 over a full weekend in early November.

The $6.3 million contract to serve as prime contractor was awarded earlier this year to Eugene-based Wildish Standard Paving Co. Of the total project value, Wildish will self-perform approximately 69 percent. Another 15 percent will be performed by subcontractors certified by Oregon’s Certification Office for Business Inclusion and Diversity (COBID), and 16 percent by non-certified subcontractors.

COBID-certified subcontractors on the project will include Alliance Geomatics LLC, A+ Flagging Inc., Anderson Erosion Control Inc., Brothers Concrete Cutting Inc., Cartello Construction Inc., CBK Construction, Just Bucket Excavating Inc., R&R Construction Inc. and Taylor Transport Inc.

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When construction of the new Siskiyou Safety Rest Area along Interstate 5 wraps up south of Ashland, it will have a tall lookout tower – but it’s just for show.

Fire lookout towers once dotted the west, said Tim Fletcher, project manager for the Oregon Department of Transportation, and the one at the rest area is intended to draw the attention of I-5 travelers.

“This facility is the first rest stop and gateway to the state for northbound travelers,” he said.

GPA Architects is designing the project in cooperation with ODOT. Early design plans called for the tower to be accessible so that people could view forestland to the west and grassland to the east, but that would have required installation of an elevator and triggered liability issues, said Steve Plowman, a GPA principal. Instead, the tower will serve as a beacon to travelers.

“We wanted people to notice it from the freeway,” he said. It’s “something that would be different and identify the facility.”

The development, which is being built in two phases, will eventually include a main building that will house the visitors’ center, tourism offices and offices for the Oregon State Police. A covered walkway with the tower in the middle will connect to a large restroom building, all set in landscaped grounds around a central plaza.

The first phase is under way, with Wildish Standard Paving of Eugene grading and constructing drainage, ramps, roadways, parking areas and other infrastructure, Fletcher said.

“All the underground utility work, drainage and paving is under construction right now,” he said. “This will be completed later this year and then we will go ahead and advertise the next project (to) construct the buildings.”

The second phase will include buildings, landscaping and picnic areas, Fletcher said. Bids for that work will be requested in mid- to late November.

This new rest area will be at Milepost 12.5 and replace one at Milepost 10 that was decommissioned for safety reasons, Fletcher said. The state previously made a commitment to the Federal Highway Administration to build a new rest area, he explained.

ODOT has been working for several years with the FHA to create a new visitor center, Fletcher said, with a Northwest influence.

“The Cascadia look has large exposed timbers, large overhangs and heavier shake,” he said. “Although the roofing material will be a thicker composite shingle, it resembles a shake roof.”

The project’s budget is $12 million. Local, state and federal dollars, as well as financial assistance from Travel Oregon, will pay for the project, Fletcher said.

“We feel this is going to provide a much-needed facility for all the travelers coming into the state of Oregon,” he said.

The GPA team worked with ODOT, Travel Oregon and other groups to come up with the best design, Plowman said.

“We came up with the influence of Cascadia architecture and as we were putting it together, looked at the topography and wanted people to notice it from the freeway,” Plowman said. “That’s where the fire lookout tower idea came from.”

The rest area is merely some of the work taking place along the southern I-5 corridor – including improvements to exit ramps and interchanges, ODOT spokesman Gary Leaming said.

“It’s a great welcoming message to people coming in from California to see the connection to the wonderful welcome center,” he said.

Construction completion is projected for 2018.

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The Oregon Department of Transportation on Thursday announced that Eugene-based Wildish Standard Paving received a contract to work on the $252 million first phase of the Newberg-Dundee Bypass project.

The $44.3 million contract is the third of four being awarded for the first phase, according to a news release from ODOT.

The Newberg-Dundee Bypass will be a controlled-access expressway. In the first phase crews are building a four-mile-long road, with one lane in each direction, from state Route 219 at Wilsonville Road to state Route 99W south of Dundee. The road is scheduled to open in 2017.

Wildish crews will construct two bridges on the bypass, a flyover bridge for Wynooski Street and a large bio-filtration pond, according to ODOT.

The first contract for the first phase went to LaDuke Construction of Drain and included construction of major embankments for the bridge approaches, installation of drainage systems and construction of one bridge.

The second contract was awarded to Springfield-based Hamilton Construction. Over the summer Hamilton crews started work on the west end of the bypass, which runs from Dundee to Chehalem Creek. Crews from Hamilton will also build signage, widen Route 99W to accommodate turn lanes on and off the bypass, construct new roadway alignment and build six bridges and three water quality ponds, according to ODOT.

ODOT split the first phase into four contracts in order to expedite the schedule while roadway segments were designed.

The last major contract of the first phase to rebuild Springbrook Road to connect Route 219 with Route 99 will be issued in spring 2015.

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SUBMITTED?BY: WILDISH?STANDARD?PAVING

The Iowa Street Viaduct on Interstate 5 is part of one of the busiest, most accident-prone stretches of interstate in the country. On an average day, more than 130,000 vehicles travel on it. The Oregon Department of Transportation turned to Wildish Standard Paving Co. to handle the challenge associated with improving the viaduct.

“The most unique aspect was the difficulty providing access to the site in three stages while maintaining three lanes of traffic both ways,” Wildish manager Tim Hendrix said.

The site spans a canyon with steep sides, allowing access only from either end. Wildish relocated major utility lines without any problems. In the second stage of the project, there was no room for two cranes, so Wildish designed and built a trolley gantry with a 50-ton chain hoist to set girders.

Throughout the project, crews removed old bridge material, installed new material, and moved concrete trucks and crews to the site without disrupting traffic, finishing the project on time and on budget.

PROJECT?TEAM + STATS:
Location: Portland, Oregon
Cost: $38 million
Start date: June 2010
Completion date: December 2013
Owner: Oregon Department of Transportation
Engineer: Oregon Department of Transportation
General contractor: Wildish Standard Paving Co.

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Not long after a fire destroyed a five-story wood-frame building under construction in Northeast Portland this past August, Portland Fire & Rescue began reviewing its security requirements for jobsites.

Federal and local investigators eventually determined that fire was arson, and requirements at the time – including installation of a chain-link fence around the site’s perimeter – had not deterred someone from igniting the blaze, Assistant Fire Marshal Doug Jones said. The structure, at the corner of Northeast Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Monroe Street, and two adjacent homes were destroyed.

“It got our attention and we decided to do something about it,” Jones said. “Before, we required fencing, but we decided that was not good enough.”

Multistory wood structures, often in residential neighborhoods, are particularly vulnerable to arson, he said.

“They are like a pile of kindling sitting there,” he said.

Now, contractors constructing a four- or five-story wood-frame building in the city must have full-time site security, either with a work crew present or someone on patrol. Other new rules require that fire doors and sprinkler systems be installed as buildings are being erected.

The rules are flexible so that builders’ individual needs can be met, Jones said. Nevertheless, contractors are concerned about they will affect construction cost and practicality.

In February, the week the new regulations were issued, the fire marshal started showing up at one of Walsh Construction‘s jobsites, said Marty Houston, the company’s quality director.

The on-site security requirement could cost between $800 and $1,000 per week to implement, Houston said. Other regulations, such as installation of automatic sprinkler piping and heads upon completion of each floor, are not practical from sequencing and scheduling standpoints, he said.

“We’re not going to put a sprinkler system in during winter and have it freeze,” he said. “We’re also not going to add sprinklers as the building goes up. Everything has to be framed before the system is put in place.”

Walsh executives met with the fire marshal’s office to discuss alternative ways that the intention of the new regulations could be accomplished. A lot of gray areas still exist, Houston said.

Erik Timmons, a principal with Beaverton-based Yorke and Curtis, said he heard about the new requirements through an architect who was filing plans for a four-story multifamily project with the city of Portland.

Yorke and Curtis typically does not employ a 24-hour security watch, but does use a perimeter fence and cameras as deterrents, Timmons said.

“I understand where it’s coming from, but to require something like that seems a little heavy-handed,” he said. “For an average 10-month project, to have that every night and all weekends – that’s a pretty significant cost.”

At the Northeast Portland site where the fire was set last summer, Pavilion Construction is preparing to begin building a new five-story, 46-unit apartment complex. Its previous effort was about 60 percent finished at the time of the fire, company President Brian Gerritz said.

Since the fire, Pavilion has met with the fire marshal and updated the security on all of its projects in the Portland area, Gerritz said.

“We’re holding dialogue prior to going vertical with wood-frame (construction),” he said.

Pavilion will build the project with tighter security – including night patrol – on the site, Gerritz said.

“Given the history, Pavilion will have staff and guards (there) during periods of vulnerability,” he said. “We feel at this site an active body is going to be our best method.”

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The recession hasn’t ended for Oregon State Bridge Construction.

Contracts for public work are still hard to come by, company president Craig Gries said, and the problem could get worse.

“It definitely still feels like we’re in a downturn,” said Gries, whose Scio-based firm is widening a bridge as part of the effort to improve the Interstate-5 interchange at Woodburn. “We’re actually looking at work that’s out of state. There doesn’t seem to be enough work on the public transportation side of things to keep people busy.”

State funding, which helped jump-start many recent public projects – including the Woodburn interchange – has begun to dry up. Now continuation of federal funding is uncertain, competition is increasing and fewer projects exist on the horizon. Bridge and highway contractors have been forced to change how they bid and look outside of Oregon to find work.

“I think there’s no doubt that there’s not enough work for the current market capacity,” said Tim Hendrix, manager of Eugene-based Wildish Standard Paving. “The collective capacity of those contractors who are still in business is much higher than the number of bridges that there are out there to get built.”

As bids become more competitive, profit margins shrink and projects can suffer, Hendrix said. Firms may not apply finishing touches that cost more, but are not required, he said.

“If you get paid enough money to cover overhead and make a profit on the job, there is a tendency to do a better job than if you’re just scraping by,” he said. “Companies are right on the razor’s edge of meeting the specifications.”

More companies are becoming desperate and bidding on more projects, hoping to land one amid tight competition, Hendrix added.

The situation could worsen. The Federal Highway Trust Fund, which provides money for highway and mass transit projects, will run out of cash by August without a new funding package passed by Congress, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation.

On that front, Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., last week introduced a bipartisan package that would extend funding six more years. But finding congressional support for any new spending will be difficult, said Travis Brouwer, chief of staff for the Oregon Department of Transportation.

“At this point the package she introduced is really a set of principles,” he said. “She has not said where the funding would come from – only that she wanted a longer term package. But it’s encouraging in the sense that there is agreement that this is needed.”

Meanwhile, the Oregon Transportation Investment Act and the Jobs in Transportation Act of 2009 are winding down.

OTIA, the state’s $1.3 billion bridge construction program, will finish this summer. More than 300 bridges were repaired or replaced over a decade, Brouwer said. JTA funding, meanwhile, peaked in the last year and has started to decline. All projects will be completed by 2019, he said.

Most of the biggest JTA projects – the Woodburn interchange, the Sunrise interchange in Clackamas County and the Newberg-Dundee Bypass – are under construction. A $126 million Oregon Route 62 bypass project in North Medford will go out to bid in December with construction set to start in spring 2015, Brouwer said.

By 2020, at least $500 million less could be spent on transportation projects in Oregon because of state and federal funding decreases, said Mike Salsgiver, executive director for the Associated General Contractors’ Oregon-Columbia chapter.

“When you pull that kind of funding out of the market, many companies will close their doors or to remain profitable go to other states, which may have more funding available,” he said.

He cited Washington, Alaska, Colorado and California as states where bridge and highway contractors could seek opportunities.

Federal and state funding is a big concern for Springfield-based Hamilton Construction Co., which two years ago opened offices in Alaska and Colorado. The firm has established contacts through those states’ transportation departments to ease into jobs, Hamilton Construction President Scott Williams said.

“You pay your dues, just like anyone who would come here,” he said. “You’ve got to meet with them and show them what you’ve done.”

Despite the ultra-competitive marketplace, Larry Gescher, a former Slayden Construction Group executive, and three colleagues left the company to open a new business in March. Gescher, now president of HP Civil Inc. in Stayton, and his three partners figured the time was right to start a firm that would be nimble and light, he said.

“We have enough experience and background in the industry to be successful,” he said. “We’re unique in the fact that we all have time and experience in the field.”

For now, the partners are doing the necessary work themselves, renting equipment and keeping overhead low, Gescher said. HP Civil has two public projects lined up: a bridge repair on U.S. 26 near Seaside and a multimodal project in Albany, he said.

“The bridge market’s changed,” he said. “We’re not going to be building lots of bridges. Most of the work will be with repairs.”

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Next week, crews will begin connecting the pieces of the Gibbs Street Pedestrian Bridge across Interstate 5.

General Contractor crews will start installing steel girders that will connect the towers on both ends of the highway starting Friday night, Nov. 4. Crews will work through the night and continue placing girders throughout November, according to a release from the Portland Bureau of Transportation. In December, crews will start pouring the concrete deck of the bridge inside the steel frame.

The $6.7 million, 700-foot long Gibbs Street Pedestrian Bridge is a PBOT project that will connect South Waterfront across I-5 to the South Portland neighborhood. Work began on the project in January and is slated to be completed by March 2012.

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Most states are doing a “poor job” when it comes to offering on-the-job training and apprenticeship opportunities for women and minorities who want to work in highway construction, a recent study found. Progress is being made in Oregon, however.

The , a national network of community organizations, earlier this month released a study that provides detailed rankings of states in regard to on-the-job training and apprenticeship programs. Oregon ranked 10th in overall use of the training programs, and while there is still room for improvement in workforce diversity, barriers are beginning to be broken down.

The Oregon Legislature in 2009 passed a bill to dedicate one-half of one percent of all federal funds received by the Oregon Department of Transportation to increase diversity in highway construction and to train people interested in those jobs.

One local laborer apprentice attributes her full-time position to that legislation.

“I know that they love me on this job, but honestly I don’t think I’d have the opportunity to prove I was worth anything if it wasn’t for laws in place to get me out here,” said Lori Baumann, who is working for on the Oregon City bridge project. “It’s nothing personal, but they stick to their own – all these men I work with have generations of their dads and people in their lives working in this field.”

Angel McClain, a carpenter apprentice working with , has had a similar experience.

“The guys have been really great, but a lot of these guys (at Zemek) are younger,” said McClain, who is 35. “A lot of older guys are harder to win over – they’re just old school.”

Although hundreds of women worked in Portland’s shipyards during World War II, postwar culture shifted again and women didn’t begin re-entering the construction workforce until the 1970s, according to Connie Ashbrook, executive director of

“There is definitely an interest in the trades, but the pathway to get into the careers is much more complex because it involves more than just individual employers; there are apprenticeship programs as well,” Ashbrook said. “We found that women really need help to maneuver through that system unless they have a family member in the trades to help steer them through it.”

Baumann grew up in Georgia, where her father was a carpenter. She learned basic skills as a carpentry assistant at a young age, but her father’s experience did not inspire her to go into the field – the wages were very low, she said. Baumann didn’t consider a career in construction until she moved to Oregon and someone told her about OTI.

After graduating from the nonprofit’s pre-apprenticeship program in August 2009, Baumann worked for several companies; she has been with Wildish for more than a year.

“I love working with (Wildish) on bridges,” she said. “Fishermen and sea lions below me, bald eagles and hawks flying above me – we’re up in the air out here, and I like heights. I’m paid extremely fairly, and I’m happy here.”

The percentage of minorities and women working as apprentices or trainees on federally-funded projects has increased from 2008 to 2010 in Oregon, according to the report. The representation of minority on-the-job trainees and apprentices has grown from 19.6 percent in 2008 to 32.3 percent in 2010, when women represented 9.8 percent of all highway trades workers in Oregon.

“We try to take the training deal really seriously,” said Josh Smith, Wildish project manager for the Oregon City bridge project. “We try to find trainees who will move from job to job with us as a long-term employee.”

But outreach will be important for the number of women and minority trainees to continue to rise, Ashbrook said.

“The way people get jobs in the trades is through family and friend networks, so if your family and friends aren’t in these professions, then it’s really hard to learn about them and what you need to qualify,” she said.

As members of Congress make the case for investing in improvements for aging infrastructure, Ashbrook hopes that the diversity of the workforce will continue to grow.

“Hundreds of people come in our door every year expressing interest in construction, but not knowing what’s available to them,” she said.

Because OTI focuses on getting women into the trades, Ashbrook routinely sends men to OTI partners such as Constructing Hope and Urban League of Portland.

“And we really only reach out to a small part of our state’s population,” she said. “So that’s just the tip of the iceberg.”

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The project to construct the Gibbs Street Pedestrian Bridge requires a lot of coordination, which could be expected for a 700-foot-wide bridge being built over Interstate 5.

For general contractor of Eugene, however, traffic logistics is not the project’s biggest challenge.

“As a bridge contractor, we’re fairly used to working with traffic,” Wildish project manager Ryan Elliott said. “What’s really different is the elevator.”

A tower for an elevator large enough to hold bicycles or wheelchairs will connect the bridge’s east side to the South Waterfront District. The elevator is merely one project challenge facing Wildish.

“There are a lot of architectural items, like windows and window frames, that we don’t normally (install),” Elliott said. “Nothing is plumb or square.”

As a result, the team has adopted a different approach than usual. For example, Elliott said the team does not normally communicate with architects, but the project’s designer from CH2M HILL was on the construction site Thursday afternoon.

Presently, crews are working on the elevator tower and sidewalk and curb improvements on both ends of the bridge. During the first two weeks of October, crews will install the girders that connect the four bridge columns, and also pour the concrete deck.

Some lanes of I-5 will be closed while the bridge deck is being installed; however, that will happen in phases, so a complete closure of the freeway won’t be necessary, Biggs said.

When it’s completed, the Gibbs Street Pedestrian Bridge will be open directly under the OHSU tram car 24 hours a day. It will include an at-grade entrance on the west side of I-5, and the elevator tower and stairway entrance on the east side. The stairway will include a “wheel trough” so that bicycles can be rolled along the stairs. A multilevel weir wall system next to the stairs will hold planters to manage storm water.

The stairs and weirs must all be installed along the steep slope between Macadam Avenue and the South Waterfront District, which is a challenging and tight site sandwiched between a day care facility, busy streets and other construction projects. On the west side, the site is even tighter and has less parking because it’s in the middle of a residential neighborhood.

Gibbs Street project crews must coordinate with others working nearby in the South Waterfront District. Work is under way to clean up the Zidell site, build the Portland-to-Milwaukie light-rail bridge, and raise Moody Avenue.

Portland Bureau of Transportation project manager Jean Senechal Biggs said that PBOT is working to coordinate the Moody Avenue and Gibbs Street Pedestrian Bridge projects. PBOT is managing the two projects, and some staffers, including Biggs, are working on both.

“There’s definitely coordination going on,” Biggs said.

On Thursday afternoon, Moody Avenue project crews were working directly outside the fence where crews were working on the Gibbs Street elevator tower. Moody Avenue crews have even had to come inside the fence to work, Elliott said.

“It’s made getting into the site that much more challenging,” he said.

Work on the $6.7 million Gibbs Street Pedestrian Bridge project started in January, and is expected to be completed next March – about two months later than planned originally.

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