Triton Construction, out of St. Albans, will build the new Morgantown Industrial Park access road and bridge spanning the Monongahela River.
The DOH awarded the contract on Wednesday.
Triton was the low bidder at $59,764,000.
The DOH’s most-recent estimates for the project’s overall cost have been in the $72 million-$80 million range. The stated goal has been to get construction underway either late this year or spring 2025.
The Dominion Post reached out to the DOH to request updates on cost and timeline, but didn’t receive a response in time for this report.
The awarding of the contract comes just over a year after the project was announced, in July 2023.
It’s being built to buy additional time to construct the nearby I-79 Harmony Grove interchange, fulfilling the state’s promise to improve connectivity between the interstate system and Mountaintop Beverage (Morgantown Industrial Park) in a timely fashion.
Despite three-plus years in process, the DOH couldn’t make good on the interchange as quickly as hoped due largely to the complexities of the federal regulatory process surrounding interstate projects.
Trucks began rolling in and out of the 330,000 square feet that comprise Phase I of the bottling plant in May 2023.
Last fall, Gov. Jim Justice ensured local officials both projects will be built.
According to the DOH’s environmental assessment for the new connection, the bridge is projected to carry 8,200 vehicles across the river each day by 2050.
Based on the most-recent publicly available details, the project will connect the south end of the industrial park to U.S. 119/Grafton Road about half a mile from the I-68 interchange. The connection will intersect Smithtown Road somewhere in the area of the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses before crossing the river via multi-span bridge and connecting directly to Rail Street at the bottom of the industrial park.
In addition to crossing over the river, the bridge will cross a portion of the rail-trail on one side and the Norfolk Southern Railroad line on the other.
According to Mon River Trails Conservancy Executive Director Ella Belling, the work is expected to close the rail-trail for a total of five weeks throughout the construction process, including an approximate three-week stretch during active steel erection of the bridge span immediately over the trail.
Dirar Ahmad, assistant director of engineering division for the DOH, said the trail will not be used in the construction process, as has been rumored.
“Rail-trail closures are intended for trail-user protection during bridge erection,” he said. “The rail-trail should not be used for construction access and staging per the environmental assessment and FONSI (findings of no significant impact).”
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