(Image: CHS)
There is a new $1.4 billion price tag — and likely a new timeline — for the work on the westermost section of the 520 replacement project including a new Portage Bay Bridge and a lid connecting the Roanoke neighborhood over the highway.
State officials say the winning best bid from contractor Skanska is about 70% higher than what Washington State Department of Transportation planners were budgeting for and are now asking to extend expiration of the bid to give the legislature to somehow come up with extra hundreds of millions of dollars to pay for the project.
“With the support of the Governor’s office and transportation legislative leadership, we have begun negotiations with Skanska to extend their proposal validity through the end of the 2024 legislative session on March 7 (it was previously set to expire on Nov. 20, 2023),” WSDOT said in a statement on the bid. “We will continue to keep you updated once we have finalized a path forward.”
Work continues, meanwhile, on the Montlake Lid portion of the multiyear replacement project with only a few final hiccups in the final months of the construction. WSDOT says the $455.3 million Montlake Project remains on schedule for late 2023/early 2024 completion.
But the Roanoke and Portage Bay projects are now facing delays that will put their planned 2030 openings in jeopardy.
CHS reported on the western projects and previous cost increases here in 2022 as WSDOT made a number of changes to the design of the Portage Bay Bridge and Roanoke Lid from the original environmental assessment in 2011 including the addition of a shared use path on the south end of the bridge that could more fully connect people walking and rolling from North Capitol Hill across the lake. Other walking and biking connections around the Roanoke lid, including wider, separated spaces for people biking were also added.
The timeline for construction on the Portage Bay segments had been a 2024 start date.
Design concept for a new bridge over Portage Bay
The funding gap may have one benefit. A second bascule bridge included in some planning next to the existing Montlake Bridge has not been supported by the City of Seattle. With the state struggling to overcame a massive funding gap for the more important Portage Bay bridge replacement and possibly scraping by to make the Roanoke Lid happen, funding for a second Montlake Bridge seems even less likely to emerge.
The bridge’s replacement is a technical necessity. But the Roanoke Lid could also be vital. When North Capitol Hill’s freeway lid is complete, it could remake the street grid around E Roanoke, providing bike and pedestrian connectivity that just doesn’t exist now and stitching this area of city back together. 10th Ave E and Delmar Drive E will be joined together by an open space lid almost as large as Roanoke Park to the north of it. Pathways on either side of the central green space would allow people walking or rolling to take shortcuts across the lid.
But to make it happen, Olympia will need to find $562 million to close the gap.
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Ok, I’ll be the idiot – if the bid was that much higher than the budget, how was it the “real inning bid”?
I should have called it the best bid. Will update.
Although I am very supportive of new green space in Seattle, I think that the proposed Roanoke Lid is a colossal waste of money, because there is already a perfectly nice space (Roanoke Park) just across the street to the north. Instead, use the money to build new parks in places that actually need them!
Agreed! Or use the money for something actually useful like transit or housing.
Curious about Montlake being on schedule for late 2023/early 2024… its late November and see a lot of major work underway including still building the NB offramps and the twin HOV/Transit lanes… doesn’t sound like it’ll be 2023 and early 2024 seems like a stretch
is the business area immediately to the South of there going to survive this construction? RIP the Roanoke if not.
Why do we want this project to move forward? All this is going to do create the next stepping to a massive amount of traffic making its way into our neighborhoods.
The tiny patch of green space being created does nothing to offset the negative consequences of this entire project.
This is off topic but related. It seems like when the topic is lidding I-5 downtown, then there is no shortage of support and no price too high. Why would the sentiment be different for 520? Perhaps sanity prevails. Or at least the realization that everything has a cost and trade-offs. No point to make, just an observation,
People living in the neighborhood will have to put up with 6 years of inconvenience (traffic congestion’s, construction noise, vibrations) and much bigger bridge. In return, City promised ear plugs (yes, ear plugs) and beautiful park when it’s done. Predictably, they over promised and will under deliver. In the end we may end up with two ugly bridges instead of one and no park.