Three “design-build” teams will compete to modernize 14 miles of Interstate 65 south of Columbus next year.
The major pavement rehab and upgrade project will include several bridges between U.S. 50 and State Road 58 and is scheduled to begin construction next year, said Will Wingfield, Indiana Department of Transportation spokesman for the agency’s Seymour district.
Wingfield said plans call for the I-65 improvement project north of Columbus, from Franklin to Indianapolis, to be completed before the project south of Columbus begins.
The project south of Columbus is modeled in a different way than having an engineering company design the project, bidding it out to a contractor with the lowest bid and then building it, Wingfield said.
Instead, INDOT has three teams pairing up an engineering company with a construction company that will compete to deliver the best taxpayer-value project for a fixed price that will be set by INDOT later this year in a request for proposals, Wingfield said.
For more on this story, see Tuesday’s Republic.
