Traffic flows both ways on the eastern side of the Washington Bridge at 3:56 p.m. on Monday, June 24, 2024. (Rhode Island Department of Transportation Traffic Camera)
Only two companies are vying to demolish the western Washington Bridge — and one of them is among the contractors that worked on the now shuttered span.
The Rhode Island Department of Transportation’s (RIDOT) public bid portal Monday revealed bidders responding to the state’s request for proposals to tear down the bridge by March 2025 are Aetna Bridge Co. of Warwick and Manafort Brothers Inc., headquartered in Plainville, Connecticut, but with an office in Cumberland.
The estimated cost to demolish the bridge is $40.5 million.
A tentative contract is expected to be awarded Friday, June 28. Meanwhile, RIDOT is still soliciting bids for the roughly $368 million contract to rebuild a new bridge by August 2026.
Aetna had previously worked on the now-canceled $78 million rehabilitation of the Washington Bridge as part of a design-build team led by Barletta Heavy Division. The project was halted last December after engineers discovered broken anchor rods that put the westbound lanes of I-195 at risk of collapse.
Aetna was among a dozen companies that received a letter from lawyers for Gov. Dan McKee’s administration notifying them that they may be sued over Washington Bridge work.
The company did not respond to a request for comment Monday. Aetna has also worked on the Route 6/10 interchange in Providence, along with repairing the substructure on the Mount Hope Bridge and preservation work on Route 24 and I-295.
Manafort Brothers Inc. boasts itself as the oldest demolition company in the Northeast. The company’s portfolio includes the reconstruction of Pier No. 2 at the Port of Davisville and replacing the northbound section of the Providence Viaduct Bridge on I-95.
Manafort Brothers Human Resources Manager Kenneth Sedlak did not respond to immediate request for comment.
RIDOT sought to attract as many vendors as possible by offering $100,000 each to the two runner-up bidders that didn’t get the contract. The money that would have gone to a third-place vendor is still part of the project budget and “final budgets will be determined once the proposals are evaluated,’ RIDOT Communications Director Liz Pettengil said.
“The state does not make any money from the lack of a third bidder,” Pettengil said.
Some potential bidders have questioned the feasibility of the state’s timeline to build a new bridge by August 2026. In addition to asking for contractors to design five lanes of travel over the new bridge, the project entails a new on-ramp from Gano Street, and a new off-ramp to Waterfront Drive.
One vendor in a post to the RIDOT online portal on May 23 commented that the multiple designs involved could take up to 240 days for a review, based on the state and third-party agency average of 30 to 60 days per design. The vendor asked the state to lower the range to 14 days per design.
“If this time is not reduced, the design phase could extend to a year or more, which would greatly compress the construction phase and would result in late completion,” the post read.
The department responded that it would reduce that timeframe to 21 days for its internal review. The review time by external agencies assisting the state will not be reduced, RIDOT added.
RIDOT plans to impose a $30,000 daily “disincentive” for missing the completion date, according to the RFP.
Final bids to rebuild the bridge are due July 3.
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