Ladies and Gentlemen, the Missouri Highways and Transportation Commission awarded the contract for the new US 169 Buck O'Neil Bridge to the winning design-build proposer on Tuesday. I couldn't get my hands on the material presented at the commission meeting because I didn't fill out a Sunshine Law request on Tuesday like I should have but I did download the commission meeting video and spliced the video which is posted below.
Using the design-build process, the project is within the $220M construction budget. The renderings shown below are screenshots from the video so they aren't the greatest but I pulled them out to try and give you some orientation as you watch the video. In all the pictures, the red arrow points to the north. I didn't want to screen out the renderings so I used the chicken scratch yellow arrows to show the direct I-35 connections and orange arrows to show the downtown Broadway access. The first one is high above from the Historic West Bottoms looking to the northeast.
The next one is a little more close up looking northeast showing the direct connects.
This one is right above the buildings along 5th street looking north at the new bridges and how the direct connections split.
The one below is over the Missouri River looking north. There is a sidewalk trail on the east side of the bridge.
The next one is looking northeast along Beardsley Road just south of 4th Street but north of I-70.
The next one is looking west from 4th and Broadway/Woodsweather. The old bridge would be right over the top of where the picture would be taken.
Lastly, this is looking northwest at the downtown airport from high above I-70 downtown.
You can watch the video and pause it and rewind it to see it all. It's a long clip. The first gentleman talking is Patrick McKenna who is the MoDOT Director and the second is Ed Hassinger who is the Chief Engineer. I included them in the video because they give some background but also give thanks to their dedicated staff who has been working some long hours the past two months reviewing the desi9n-build proposals and going through all the government red tape to get to this point.
I know that the project director Mary Miller has been working long days the past two weeks straight getting this very complex project to this point. I can't say how proud I am of all the folks that have worked on this project. This is a big deal for the region and will be a lasting legacy for everyone involved in the project. Enjoy the video but keep in mind the final details will still need to be worked out this year during the formal design process and things may end up being slightly different.