Two local companies will work together this summer repairing an 18-mile stretch of Interstate 295 that will be closed to cars for nearly three months.
Last week, the Maine Department of Transportation announced that Pike Industries, whose regional branch is based in Westbrook, will be heading up a project that will reroute over 13,000 drivers daily, southbound from Gardiner to Topsham, from the middle of June through the end of August. Pike, which will take care of the paving work, subcontracted Shaw Brothers Construction Inc., based in Gorham, to excavate the highway.
According to Meg Lane, spokeswoman for the Department of Transportation, “pricing is the major factor” in choosing Pike’s $28.5 million bid on the project. The only other company to bid on the project was Lane Construction, based in Connecticut, which offered to do the work for $30.3 million.
Jon Olson, regional manager for Pike, said Pike and Shaw Brothers often team up on big projects in the state, but their roles are usually reversed, with Shaw Brothers subcontracting Pike to do paving work.
“Typically, paving is not the biggest part of the job,” Olson said, but in this case, it is. Still, he said, this is a big job for Shaw Brothers, too, as there’s more than $3 million of excavation work to be done.
“It was a good fit for both of us,” said Jon Shaw, president of Shaw Brothers. “We need the work right now.”
Olson said about 150 Pike employees will be working seven, 16-hour days a week in order to get the job done in time, laying 180,000 tons of hot mix asphalt over the highway’s deteriorated concrete. Shaw Brothers’ role in the project will be to excavate the highway underneath bridges, which can’t afford to have an additional 8 inches of asphalt laid on top of the surface, because of truck clearance requirements. Pike also subcontracted Cianbro, based in Pittsfield, to complete work on the bridges.
Shaw said he expects to have about 30 of his employees working on the excavation portion of the job, which will take 12, 14-hour days to finish.
Olson said if the highway were left open during construction, the job would have taken three years, as opposed to three months.
According to the Department of Transportation, the rehabilitation of the highway, which was built in the 1970s, should last 20 years. Work on the northbound lanes is expected to be completed within a couple of years.
“It’s a great project for the state,” Olson said. “We’re really excited.”
Two local companies, Pike Industries and Shaw Brothers, worked together to get the $28.5 million contract to rebuild 18 miles of Interstate 295, from Gardiner to Topsham.Send questions/comments to the editors.
