Latest news with #WalshConstruction
Yahoo
06-08-2025
- Yahoo
Tacoma says Sound Transit project caused electrical damages. The city's suing
A Sound Transit Link extension project damaged Tacoma electrical facilities on two different days in August 2022, forcing power outages and nearly $400,000 in repair costs that the city has yet to be reimbursed for, according to a lawsuit. The city of Tacoma has sued Sound Transit and two contractors who worked on the project, accusing the defendants of negligence and violating a state law that governs 'willful and malicious' occurrences of such damages. 'The statute applies to the property damage at issue here, where Defendants knowingly damaged marked electrical facilities within the City of Tacoma, and failed to notify the City of the damage,' the lawsuit said. Sound Transit and contractor, Walsh Construction Co. II, and its sub-contractor, Dickson Demolition and Abatement, didn't respond to messages from The News Tribune seeking comment by deadline. Tacoma claimed that the contractors acknowledged receipt of repair-related invoices totaling more than $377,000 from the city but have paid nothing, according to the suit filed July 29 in Pierce County Superior Court. Maria Lee, a city spokesperson, declined to comment on the civil complaint, following the city's standard practice. The project in question — referred to in the complaint only as the 'Sound Transit Light Link Rail Extension Project' — appears to be the Hilltop Tacoma Link Extension, based on project details shared in the suit. Work on the Hilltop Tacoma Link Extension, which extended service into Stadium and Hilltop districts upon completion in 2023, had shut down the entire intersection of Commerce and South 9th streets for about six weeks beginning Aug. 1, 2022, according to the suit and previous News Tribune reporting. On Aug. 3, 2022, Sound Transit and the contractors damaged at least three of eight Tacoma Power electrical conduits in a Commerce Street section while performing project work, the suit claimed. Five days later, a second Tacoma Power vault at Commerce and South 9th streets was allegedly damaged by the defendants when a vault casting was shifted off a vault opening, leaving the interior exposed to significant concrete debris that fell in. 'Restoration work for both incidents, arising from damage caused by the Defendants, involved outages to Tacoma Power customers, monopolized Tacoma Power crews, and delayed ongoing and existing projects,' the suit said. The city claimed to have incurred liquidated damages of more than $286,000 and $91,000, respectively, to fix the damages to the marked electrical facilities following the incidents, according to the suit. 'At all relevant times, Defendants Sound Transit, Walsh, and Dickson, breached their respective duties of care owed to the City,' the suit said, 'and in doing so, negligently caused the City to suffer damages, including but not limited to, damages for investigation and consultant costs, repair and remediation expense in the liquidated amounts set forth above, and attorney's fees and costs in amount to be proven at trial.' Tacoma is seeking a judgment for unspecified damages, legal fees and other relief deemed appropriate by the court. Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
25-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
DBEs kept out of Brent Spence Bridge project, lawsuit says
This story was originally published on Construction Dive. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily Construction Dive newsletter. A Kentucky attorney has filed a false claims lawsuit against the contractors building the $3.6 billion Brent Spence Bridge Corridor project connecting Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky, alleging that they circumvented federal Disadvantaged Business Enterprise requirements, according to the complaint. The lawsuit names two joint ventures between Chicago-based Walsh Construction and Westerville, Ohio-headquartered Kokosing Construction — referred to in the lawsuit as WKJV and WKJVII — as well as DEI consultancy WEB Ventures LLC and HR firm Make It Plain Consulting, both of Cincinnati. The builders tapped Jamir Davis, a civil rights attorney at Covington, Kentucky-based J. Davis Law Firm, for his expertise in federal DBE compliance when applying for the Brent Spence Bridge contract, per the complaint. However, after using his qualifications and firm to win the job, Davis alleges that the JV cut him out of the project, neglected to pay him and circumvented DBE requirements. Per the complaint, Walsh's self-performing approach — a common industry practice that prime contractors engage in to have more control over a project's timeline and budget — minimizes subcontracting. The project requirement that approximately 9% of the work be allocated to DBEs and overseen by a qualified, independent entity 'significantly undercuts' the JV's expected revenues, the suit alleges. 'To circumvent this requirement, WKJV and WEB orchestrated a scheme to reduce oversight and compliance with federal diversity standards, prioritizing their financial interests over legal obligations,' the suit reads. 'Once Walsh and WEB had utilized JDLF's qualifications and expertise, they conspired against JDLF by fabricating fraudulent qualifications for WEB's project manager.' Per the lawsuit, filed June 18 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky, Davis reported the situation and Ohio DOT substantiated his claims, which led to WEB being terminated from the project. Walsh Kokosing allegedly then hired Make It Plain Consulting to serve as the project's diversity and inclusion manager, but it was also unqualified for the role. Davis said the Ohio DOT ignored and enabled these actions by refusing to investigate or respond to open records requests, and allowed the JV to self-perform the oversight of the minority contracts, according to WLWT5, Cincinnati's NBC affiliate. The agency does not comment on pending litigation, an Ohio DOT spokesperson said in an email. 'Walsh has a long history of engaging in practices that constitute DBE fraud, systematically circumventing DBE requirements and discriminating against minority-owned companies to maximize profits and maintain control over federally funded projects,' the complaint reads. In 2023 Walsh agreed to pay nearly $1.1 million to resolve False Claims Act allegations that it had participated in a scheme designed to defraud the DBE program in connection with work on the federally funded Whittier Bridge/I-95 Improvement Project, according to the DOT Office of Inspector General. Construction Dive reached out to Walsh Kokosing, WEB Ventures and Make It Plain Consulting for comment but did not hear back as of publication time. The future of DBE in civil contracting is murky, however: In May the U.S. DOT agreed to settle a case challenging the constitutionality of its DBE program, effectively barring women- and minority-owned companies from automatic inclusion in the initiative. The same day Davis filed the suit, Ohio and Kentucky governors unveiled the final design for the project, according to the project website: A cable-stayed bi-level bridge. Instead of using a traditional steel truss to support the bridge's lower deck, both decks will be supported by a cabling system with no steel work connecting them. "As we went through the designs, we wanted this bridge to be cost effective, functional and safe, but we also wanted it to look good," said Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine in a news release. "This bridge will become an iconic part of the Cincinnati skyline and a landmark gateway that honors our states' excellence in engineering, transforms the daily commute, and keeps commerce moving." The design underwent extensive technical review and wind testing, per the release, but ultimately, cost, constructability and schedule were the deciding factors in the selection. Dallas-based AECOM is the project's lead designer. Jacobs, also headquartered in Dallas, is providing design and engineering services. The project team will now continue refining project and design details, per the release. The recent false claims lawsuit is not the first time a player on the project has been sued. In October 2024, four Cincinnati-area groups filed a federal lawsuit questioning the environmental impact of the project. That suit alleged that transportation officials didn't sufficiently study the impact on surrounding communities — home to primarily non-White residents — and said the design doesn't do enough to include alternative modes to car travel such as walking, biking and transit. The current Brent Spence Bridge is an eight-lane, double-deck span carrying I-71 and I-75 as well as local traffic over the Ohio River between Cincinnati and Covington, Kentucky. The project entails building a 10-lane companion bridge and rehabilitating the existing one. The new bridge will carry I-71 and I-75 traffic, and local drivers will use the existing span, which will be reduced to six lanes. The project has become something of a symbol of the federal Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Former President Joe Biden visited in 2023 and called attention to its status as one of the country's most congested freight routes and a weak link in the supply chain. The companion bridge will be built in phases and is scheduled to be complete by 2032, per the project website. It's not clear when the project will break ground, but the design-build team will continue to advance the project toward final engineering and construction phases, according to DeWine's news release. Recommended Reading $3.6B Brent Spence Bridge project sued over environmental concerns Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
06-06-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
$427M to rebuild Washington Bridge by November 2028, McKee announces
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) — Rebuilding the westbound Washington Bridge is expected to cost $427 million and be completed by November 2028, Gov. Dan McKee announced Friday, delivering long-awaited news about the project. McKee said the state has hired Walsh Construction Co. of Chicago to rebuild the heavily traveled bridge that abruptly closed to traffic in December 2023 after a structural failure. Walsh Construction won the contract after a lengthy competitive bidding saga that began just months after the bridge closed. State officials initially in early 2024 estimated the bridge would cost between $250 million and $300 million, though they cautioned at the time those figures were highly preliminary. A later, more concrete estimate put the price tag at $368 million, making the new $427 million estimate a 16% increase. 'I understand that this has been a challenging time for those who rely on the Washington Bridge, especially in the early days before we were able to restore six lanes of traffic,' McKee said at a State House news conference. The rebuild contract is only one part of the overall cost of the Washington Bridge crisis. When demolition and emergency costs are added to the overall total, taxpayers are currently expected to pay $571 million for the infrastructure failure, according to a Target 12 analysis of state documents. 'The bridge is part of a major artery in Rhode Island that impacts thousands of people every day,' he added. 'We owe it to you to deliver a bridge that is safe and will ultimately make your life easier.' More than 96,000 vehicles traveling on I-195 Westbound drove over the bridge each day before the closure, according to the R.I. Department of Transportation. The state has since rerouted traffic on the eastbound Washington Bridge, a newer span, to go in both directions with additional lanes. RIDOT Director Peter Alviti said the new bridge has been designed to carry 80,000 vehicles every day for 100 years. (Alviti said he expected daily traffic to be lower than pre-closure levels because of the reopening of the Henderson Bridge, another connection between Providence and East Providence.) 'We're ready to build this bridge,' Alviti said. While the bridge was initially expected to reopen within a few months after its closure, further inspections revealed it couldn't be salvaged, and it is currently being demolished. But the effort to engineer a quick process for constructing the new bridge failed last July when no companies bid, leading the McKee administration to regroup and change its approach. The initial price tag for demolition was set at $40.5 million, but that cost quickly ballooned to nearly $100 million after the McKee administration decided to expand the project to include tearing down the bridge's substructure. Walsh Construction has built other bridges throughout New England, including the Memorial Bridge in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and the Pearl Harbor Memorial Bridge, also known as the Q Bridge, in New Haven, Connecticut. The losing bidder will be paid $1.75 million as a consolation prize for participating in the process. Eli Sherman (esherman@ is a Target 12 investigative reporter for 12 News. Connect with him on Twitter and on Facebook. Ted Nesi (tnesi@ is a Target 12 investigative reporter and 12 News politics/business editor. He co-hosts Newsmakers and writes Nesi's Notes on Saturdays. Connect with him on Twitter, Bluesky and Facebook. Alexandra Leslie (aleslie@ is a Target 12 investigative reporter covering Providence and more for 12 News. Connect with her on Twitter and on Facebook. Download the and apps to get breaking news and weather alerts. Watch or with the new . Follow us on social media: Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
05-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
McKee to reveal cost, timeline, winning bidder for Washington Bridge on Friday
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) — A year and a half after the abrupt closure of the westbound Washington Bridge, Rhode Islanders are set to learn how long it will take to build a replacement and how much it will cost. Gov. Dan McKee will hold a State House news conference Friday at 10 a.m. to announce which of the two finalists has won the contract for the new bridge, his office announced. The state closed the 56-year-old bridge with almost no notice during rush hour on Dec. 11, 2023, after a structure failure was discovered, leading to major traffic problems and widespread than 96,000 vehicles traveling on I-195 Westbound drove over the bridge each day before the closure, according to RIDOT. The state has since rerouted traffic on the eastbound Washington Bridge, a newer span, to go in both directions with additional lanes. While the bridge was initially expected to reopen within a few months, further inspections revealed it couldn't be salvaged, and is currently being demolished. The state's effort to engineer a quick process for constructing the new bridge failed last July when no companies bid, leading the administration to regroup and change its approach. The two finalists chosen in December as part of the new bidding process were Walsh Construction of Chicago and a joint venture between American Bridge Co. of Pennsylvania and MLJ Contracting Corp. of New York. The governor's office describes both as 'nationally recognized bridge building groups.' The losing bidder will be paid $1.75 million as a consolation prize for participating in the process. During his monthly interview on 12 News at 4 last month, R.I. Department of Transportation Director Peter Alviti described the proposals presented by both groups to officials as 'very impressive.' The bidding process is secret so no information has been released about their plans. (Story continues below video.) The state initially estimated the new bridge would cost $368 million and be open by August 2026. Officials long ago stopped saying if they thought those goals were still achievable, though they never ruled it out, either. Rhode Island's congressional delegation has so far secured $221 million in federal grants to help offset the cost of the bridge project. In the meantime, a separate $98 million project to demolish the old westbound bridge is proceeding. Demolition of the substructure was completed on Feb. 21. The state expanded the project last year to also include demolition of the old bridge's underwater substructure, and that work is expected to supposed to be finished by mid-December. Separately, the state has filed a lawsuit against various companies that worked on the bridge over the years. McKee and Alviti have repeatedly expressed confidence in the structural integrity of the eastbound bridge, which now has considerably more weight on it due to the added westbound vehicle traffic as well as temporary concrete barriers. Alviti said last year he still expects the eastbound bridge, built in the 2000s, to hold up for its full expected lifespan of 75 years. Ted Nesi (tnesi@ is a Target 12 investigative reporter and 12 News politics/business editor. He co-hosts Newsmakers and writes Nesi's Notes on Saturdays. Connect with him on Twitter, Bluesky and Facebook. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
