City leaders celebrated the groundbreaking of the new Mississippi River Bridge on April 19.
“Today marks the beginning of a vital new link that will improve traffic safety, grow new jobs, open up opportunities for development and boost the economy on both sides of the river,” said U.S. Rep. Wm. Lacy Clay.
Yet, Clay also reminded leaders, including U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood, U.S. Sen. Christopher “Kit” Bond and Illinois Congressman Jerry Costello, of the ongoing struggle to increase diversity on construction projects in the region.
He said when the region was trying to find funding for this project, he challenged both the Illinois and Missouri departments of transportation to make diversity real, instead of just an afterthought.
“And today, I want to continue to urge them to move forward in new and innovation ways to make this a reality,” Clay said.
The new four-lane, cable-stayed bridge will relocate Interstate 70 traffic from the Poplar Street Bridge to the Mississippi River Bridge, alleviating traffic congestion. When complete in 2014, the bridge will be the third-longest cable-stayed bridge in the U.S., according to transportation officials.
The main span of the bridge will be constructed by a contractor team made up of Massman Construction/Traylor Brothers/Alberici Constructors (MTA). Alberici Constructors is a St. Louis-based firm, Massman Construction is from Kansas City and Traylor Brothers is from Evansville, Ind.
MTA estimates its portion of the project will require more than 8,000 tons of structural steel and 28,000 cubic yards of concrete.
The project’s total cost is $670 million.
For the bridge’s main span, MoDOT set a goal of 18.3 percent participation for Disadvantaged Business Enterprises. That’s compared to the Interstate-64 project’s 16 percent DBE goal.
April Hendricks-Brown, MoDOT’s senior civil rights specialist, is the point person for making sure the department meets its minority workforce goals, as well as making sure the DBE fulfill their contracts.
“We have to ensure the integrity of the DBE program,” Hendricks-Brown said. “You have to make sure people are performing the work.”
Math on MTA contract
Of the $229.5 million of construction work on the main span, 16.6 percent ($38 million) will go to DBE firms, Hendricks-Brown said. Of that, about $33.8 million goes to minority-owned firms, and $3.8 million will go to women-owned firms.
The bulk of the money will go to Tarrasco Steel Company, a Hispanic-owned business, with $15.5 million.
Some worry that the Mississippi-based company will hire workers and buy from suppliers that are outside the region, said Adolphus Pruitt, vice president of the St. Louis City NAACP branch.
Yet Hendricks-Brown said, “They have to hire local people. The union is going to hold their feet to the fire on that one.”
Hendricks-Brown grew up in University City and graduated from Saint Louis University School of Law. She worked with Tony Thompson’s Kwame Building Group, which also is working with the project’s DBE compliance team. Working with Thompson, she said, she got to see what it takes to be a minority business owner.
“Being a small contractor, you have to face the hurdles,” she said.
Understanding this, Hendricks-Brown also helps the DBE firms to find resources and training that are specific to MoDOT’s standards.
During the I-64 project, Hendricks-Brown was also worked with MoDOT on its minority participation goals. Pruitt criticized the MoDOT training and apprenticeship programs with the I-64 project, saying many of the apprentices couldn’t find jobs after they graduated.
Hendricks-Brown said she has a list of these apprentices and is constantly putting their names in the hands of contractors, not only for the Mississippi River Bridge project.
“That’s where I cry out, ‘We’ve trained them, here they are, hire them,’” she said. “We are responsible for this.”
In the bridge project overall, 98 DBE subcontractors have received contracts to provide about $53 million in design or construction services, Hendricks-Brown said. Of these, about 82 percent are minority-owned businesses and 18 percent are women-owned businesses. There are more than 30 construction projects needed to build the Mississippi River Bridge, and six have been awarded.
