Bridge needs more work than thought

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September 29, 2012

Bridge needs more work than thought

A. Piatt Andrew arch needs added $8M in repairs

By Steven Fletcher Staff Writer The Gloucester Daily Times Sat Sep 29, 2012, 12:00 AM EDT

It’s worse than they thought.

Engineers from state Department of Transportation told members of City Council this week there are an estimated $8 million to $10 million in structural steel repairs left to do on the A. Piatt Andrew Bridge over Route 128. Work, they said, that needs another contract and another phase of construction.

Work on the bridge kicked off a week ago, and engineer Paul Maloy said it would continue through spring, the next construction season. That doesn’t include the additional steel repairs.

Maloy and engineer Chuck Sabella delivered the news to City Council on Tuesday, as part of an update on the bridge work requested by state Sen. Bruce Tarr and state Rep. Ann-Margaret Ferrante.

Repair of the A. Piatt Andrew Bridge began in 2008 after the state awarded SBS New England a $23 million contract. But a problem cropped up soon after work started.

“When we got out there and inspected the bridge, we found the structure had far more advanced deterioration than we anticipated,” Maloy said.

That advanced deterioration required roughly $2.1 million in additional steel repairs, said Maloy. Those repairs fixed problems in the bridge columns and floor beams, and caused long-term lane closures last spring.

The state Department of Transportation expected the project would last three years, wrapping up in September 2011, but the deterioration it found when it set up staging under the bridge will take more time to fix, said Maloy. The estimated $8 million to $10 million will cover work needed on the archway of the A. Piatt Bridge.

Currently crews are painti

ng the structural steel. While they’ll work until the temperature makes it impossible to paint, Maloy said the contractor will need to come back next spring.

That painting will require closing down one lane on each side of the A. Piatt Andrew Bridge, from 10 a.m until 2 p.m. weekdays, Maloy added. This round of work is also fixing some mistakes the previous painting contractors made.

The state has run through three contractors on this project, one of which caused a fire on the staging under the bridge in 2010. The department, said Maloy, took them off the project after that. The fire set the bridge work back a few months. They didn’t fare much better with the next one, he said.

“We’re not sure how much we can complete this year before the temperature comes down,” Maloy said.

Steven Fletcher may be contacted at 1-978-283-7000 x3455, or sfletcher@gloucestertimes.com. Follow him on Twitter at @stevengdt.