Minority-participation set at 16 percent
Of the St. Louis American
The first design-build project for the Missouri Department of Transportation is also its largest in MoDOT history.
It is the New I-64 Project.
What makes design-build important to minority contractors, African-American craftsman and laborers is the fact that design-build delivery combines the design and construction phases into one contract. This one contract team completes the design and construction in parallel instead of in succession, which saves time and resources.
With MoDOT setting the minority-participation bar at a 16-percent level on the $535-million project, design-build will help create more opportunity for disadvantaged and women-owned business enterprises.
The groundwork for, hopefully, record minority participation on this huge project started long before the recent heat wave. In fact, it was freezing in January when MCU representatives met with MoDOT board members to present a “Workforce Development Agreement.”
The landmark proposal called for half of 1 percent of federal highway dollars designated for the highway improvements being committed to support training and incentives for apprentice utilization on the project. This comes to more than $2 million.
Two project teams competing for the design-build contract – FAM-64 and Gateway Constructors – worked with local construction and trade unions and community-based organizations to pave out a strategy.
Included MCU, MOKAN, Pride, SLATE and many others, including the Rosa Parks Initiative. St. Louis Black Leadership Roundtable, YouthBuild, St. Louis, ACORN, Associated General Contractors, Construction Careers Center and Construction Prep Center.
The seeds for the minority participation were planted on July 13, 1999 when activists, prominent business and civic leaders and supporters of black contractors joined to shut down I-70 in protest of the lack of minority participation on a highway improvement that stretched through St. Louis.
Another possible protest on I-64 was averted when negotiations began for creation of the Construction Careers Center and other training programs. Both teams attempting to win the MoDOT contract know minority participation numbers will be scrutinized.
The FAM-64 major participants include Fluor Enterprises, Inc., Ames Construction, Inc., Jacobs Civil Inc., and HDR, Inc. Additional team members include Geotechnology, Inc., S&ME, Inc., and Edelman.
The Gateway Constructors team major participants include Granite Construction Company, Fred Weber Inc., Millstone Bangert Inc., Parsons Transportation Group Inc., and URS Corporation. Additional team members include Gerstner Electric, Inc., Crawford, Bunte, Brammeier, Horner & Shifrin, Inc., Terracon Consultants, Inc., and Vector Communications.
African-American-owned DKW Construction and the Kwame Building Group are among the privately owned firms that are members of the I-64 advisory group.
Lester Woods, Missouri Department of Transportation external civil rights administrator, said, “Growing the workforce is a complicated task that cannot be solved by one entity.”
“With everyone working together and doing our individual roles in this process, we will see more trained minority and female workers.”
The New I-64 project will see reconstruction of 12 miles of urban interstate highway, interchanges and bridges from west of Spoede Road to Sarah Street (east of Boyle Avenue) on I-64, and from south of Brentwood Boulevard to Eager Road on I-170.
For more information about construction on I-64, visit www.thenewi64.org.