The full cost to build 30 Crossing -- $1.32 billion and change -- includes a third phase for which the Arkansas Department of Transportation has identified no source of funding yet.
The first two phases of remaking the 6.7-mile corridor through downtown Little Rock and North Little Rock carry a $981.7 million price tag, a figure that was produced in 2019 after the department selected the Kiewit-Massman Constructors joint venture to do the work.
"That leaves $340.7 million of unfunded work," Lorie Tudor, the agency director, said in an email last week.
The $1.3 billion figure is contained in the department's financial plan for the project, which the Federal Highway Administration requires for all road and bridge projects exceeding $500 million. The document is an exhibit in legal proceedings seeking to halt the project.
Tudor said the figure also is in the environmental assessment document that the department prepared to ensure no obstacles existed to building the project.
The unfunded portion of the project includes replacing the overpasses carrying I-30 over the Union Pacific Railroad yards in North Little Rock and reconstructing I-30 between I-630 and I-530, she said. That work isn't expected to be completed until 2035, according to the project's financial plan.
The $1.3 billion price tag is more than twice what the department initially envisioned years ago when it began planning what became 30 Crossing, the most complex and expensive project the agency has undertaken.
Initially, the project amounted to little more than replacing the bridge over the Arkansas River. Eventually, the scope of the project expanded with agency officials believing that by combining changes along the corridor it would be more efficient in money and time than doing the work piecemeal.
Department officials initially identified $631.7 million that they could commit to the project. The pot included regular federal road construction money, federal bridge funds and money from Amendment 91, which state voters approved in 2012.
The amendment included a 0.5% statewide sales tax in place for 10 years to finance the department's $1.8 Connecting Arkansas Program. The CAP, as it is called, focused on upgrading regionally significant projects, including I-30.
The department pursued 30 Crossing as its first use of the design-build construction method.
The typical method that the agency uses for road and bridge projects is to have a separate team design the project, put the design specifications out for bid and select the lowest responsible bidder to do the work.
In design-build, the project isn't fully designed, which allows a design and contracting team to collaborate to engineer and construct projects, which supporters say can be quicker and less expensive than the traditional method.
At the same time, whoever the department picked to work on the project would "build to a budget," as the department's director for much of the project development, Scott Bennett, liked to say.
In short, a factor in whoever was selected was who could give the department the "most bang for the buck" or, in this case, the most bang for $631.7 million.
Three years ago, the department eventually accepted six applications from a total of 11 companies, which included some of the world's biggest civil infrastructure firms.
In the end, the department picked a joint venture that included two firms familiar with working in Arkansas -- Kiewit-Massman Constructors.
Massman Construction Co. of Kansas City, Mo., was behind the $98.6 million project to build a replacement for the Broadway Bridge, which also crosses the Arkansas River between downtown Little Rock and North Little Rock.
Kiewit Infrastructure South Co. of Fort Worth has won contracts on several high-profile Arkansas highway projects over the years.
It worked on the $22.3 million project to build a new ramp from Cantrell Road to I-430 north in Little Rock, and on a $94.8 million project to widen a 2.9-mile section of Interstate 49 between Porter Road and the Arkansas 112 and U.S. 71B interchanges in Fayetteville, a project that also involves changing the interchanges.
But the I-30 project is a handful.
The 6.7-mile corridor stretches from I-530 in Little Rock to I-40 in North Little Rock, going through the heart of the heavily developed downtown cores of both cities and crossing the Arkansas River. The project also includes a small section of I-40 between I-30 and U.S. 67/167, also in North Little Rock.
All told, the busy stretch has interchanges with five other major routes that in addition to I-40 and U.S. 67/167, include I- 440, I-530 and I-630.
The corridor and the bridge, which carries 125,000 vehicles daily, were both built almost 50 years ago. The bridge, congested with traffic above, also poses challenges to barge traffic on the river below.
Under the design approved by the Federal Highway Administration and recommended from an environmental review, the highway will be widened to 10 lanes from its current six, with two of the new lanes in each direction serving as collector-distributor lanes in the immediate vicinity of both downtowns.
The collector-distributor lanes would be separated from the six main travel lanes to allow for slower and safer speeds to leave and enter the interstate.
Even though the joint venture was deemed by the department as the best of those who solicited the work, it was unable to stretch the $631.7 million budget to build all of what the department wanted. It said the work the agency wanted done would cost closer to $1 billion.
In the end, the department divided the projects into phases, the first two of which have money committed to them.
Phase 1, which began this fall, has $540 million in construction costs, Tudor said. They include:
• Reconstructing the Arkansas River bridge.
• Building the new interchange for downtown Little Rock to replace the I-30/Cantrell Road interchange in Little Rock.
• Building two lanes on the flyover ramp connecting eastbound I-630 to eastbound I-30 in Little Rock.
• Reconstructing overpasses for East Ninth and East Sixth streets in Little Rock.
• Fixing the eastbound weave issues between I-40 and U.S. 67/167 in North Little Rock.
• Fully widening I-30 from south of East Ninth Street in Little Rock to Bishop Lindsey Drive in North Little Rock.
The Arkansas Supreme Court, in an Oct. 29 ruling, said the department couldn't use money from Amendment 91 on the 30 Crossing project. The state's high court found that the language in the amendment didn't permit money collected under the amendment to be used on highways exceeding four lanes.
Tudor has said the project will remain a priority and will get built.
"We will use a combination of federal and regular State funds for the entire 30 Xing project," she said in a followup email Friday, apparently referring to the first phase.
The first phase is scheduled to last until 2025, according to Tudor.
In her earlier email, she reiterated that the second phase would be paid for largely with money collected under Issue 1, which voters approved earlier this month.
Issue 1 is the constitutional amendment that permanently extends the state's 0.5% sales tax for roads and highways that voters approved in 2012. The latter is set to expire in June 2023.
State officials project that voter approval of Issue 1 will raise about $205 million a year for the Transportation Department for highways and about $44 million a year each for cities and counties for roads in the future.
Under Phase 2, Tudor said, the work will cost $350 million, and the timing for it hasn't been determined. It will include:
• The westbound entrance ramp at East Ninth Street to I-630 west in Little Rock.
• Fixing westbound weave issues from I-40 to Bishop Lindsey Drive in North Little Rock.
• Building an additional lane on westbound I-30 from I-40 to Bishop Lindsey Drive.
• Rehabilitating I-40 between I-30 and U.S. 67/167 in North Little Rock.
• Reconstructing the North Hills Boulevard interchange in North Little Rock, which is required to widen I-40.
What is termed as the remaining phases will cost $246 million, Tudor said. It includes not only the overpass over the railroad yards in North Little Rock but reconstructing I-30 between I-630 and I-530.
The department already has more than $50 million in preliminary work on the project, optimizing and refining the project and acquiring rights of way.
In the first phase, too, the department said it expects to spend $35 million for verification, testing and inspection of work, which is a federal requirement. Local enhancements are budgeted at $3.8 million.
In all, Tudor said, $638.2 million will be spent on the first phase. Future phases will cost a total of $684.2 million.
Built into those costs are some risks that the contractors are incurring in pursuing a project with a set budget and certain elements that must be built regardless of the costs.
Part of the increase in costs is "largely due to a market adjustment by [design-build] contractors having realized large losses on lump-sum D-B projects, an increase risk associated with a market new to D-B delivery, and added inflation costs due to the shift in project schedule," according to the financial plan prepared for the project.
Given the complexity and size of the project, Tudor said she remains confident that using the design-build method was the correct call.
"There is increased risk to the Design-Build Team due to this being the first Design-Build Project undertaken by ARDOT," she wrote, referring to the Arkansas Department of Transportation. "If ARDOT had chosen to use the traditional delivery method of Design-Bid-Build -- there would have been many unknown risks assumed by ARDOT that would have been just as great or greater due to the size and impact of the project and the complexity of the design combined with the need to maintain traffic for 120,000 vehicles per day during construction.
"Complex Lump Sum Design-Build project estimates can be greatly affected by risk, especially large ones over multiple years as contractors own the risk for project quantities and have little control over market changes in a turbulent world. Large Complex Design-Bid-Build projects constructed over multiple years are also greatly influenced by market inflation, but the Owner (ARDOT) takes on more of the risk."
She also said breaking up the project into phases will require additional time and that inflation, as a result, has been factored into the costs in later years of the project.
"Design-Build is a proven project delivery method to accelerate construction of a critical project such as 30 Crossing acknowledging a significant risk transfer was made from the Owner to the Contractor Team," Tudor said. "This risk transfer, along with a desire to increase innovation to solve the corridor's problems beyond traditional contracting methods, is beneficial to the users."