Finalists to redo I-30 leg now at three

The list of some of the world’s largest civil infrastructure firms wanting to oversee the $631.7 million project to remake the Interstate 30 corridor through downtown Little Rock and North Little Rock has been narrowed from 11 to five.

The companies that made the Arkansas Department of Transportation’s short list include the U.S. subsidiary of Ferrovial of Madrid; Granite Construction Co. of Watsonville, Calif., and Archer Western Construction LLC of Atlanta, participating as a joint venture; and Kiewit Infrastructure South of Fort Worth and Massman Construction Co. of Kansas City, Mo., also participating as a joint venture.

They were among a total of 11 firms submitting six responses to the department’s request for qualifications from firms interested in designing and building the state’s largest infrastructure project, which will redesign and rebuild the congested 6.7-mile route largely between Interstate 530 in Little Rock and Interstate 40 in North Little Rock and replace the I-30 bridge over the Arkansas River.

“The three respondents who were selected for the short list scored the highest primarily due to key personnel who demonstrated meeting or exceeding the requirements of the [request for qualifications] and a demonstrated good understanding of the project,” said Ben Browning, a top department official overseeing the project, which is known as 30 Crossing.

He said the department formed three committees consisting of five agency employees each to score the responses. Categories scored included adherence to the requirements in the request for qualifications, their relevant past experience, qualifications of key personnel and their understanding of the project.

Each respondent submitted between 300 pages and 500 pages of information, Browning said.

Agency officials plan to spend the next several months meeting with each team individually to ensure they understand what will be expected of the team eventually selected for the project.

A request for proposals for 30 Crossing won’t be issued until the project receives federal approval, which is anticipated by March. At that point, the three teams will have up to six months to respond. The team likely will be selected by the end of 2018.

Their selection comes at the same time the department is working to complete an environmental assessment, which is a document addressing environmental concerns associated with the project.

Environmental assessments are less rigorous than an environmental impact statement, but Browning has said the department has been developing the assessment as if it were an impact statement, which means that if the federal government concludes an impact statement is warranted, it wouldn’t require a huge delay or cost to complete.

A draft environmental assessment is expected to be ready for federal review in November, Browning said. Once the draft receives federal approval, it is expected to be available for public review, including a public hearing, sometime between December and February, he said.