Best bid to rehab Pittsburgh’s Charles Anderson Bridge slightly less than $50 million projection

The apparent low bid to rehabilitate Pittsburgh’s closed Charles Anderson Bridge is slightly lower than city officials had projected.

Last month, city engineer Eric Setzler had estimated upgrading the span that carries the Boulevard of the Allies in Oakland into Schenley Park would cost about $50 million. Mosites Construction Co.’s bid of $48.5 million was the lowest of four received, the city reported Monday.

The other bids ranged from $51.8 million to $56.6 million.

Construction should start by the end of the year.

The project has been on the fast track since March 2023, when Mayor Ed Gainey successfully lobbied the Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission to add full rehabilitation of the bridge to its project list. The 780-foot bridge had been closed a few weeks earlier for emergency repairs that would have taken four months and cost $1 million to $2 million, but it remained closed after SPC’s decision to move it up on the priority list.

The city entered a partnership with the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation to put engineering and design work on the fast track and finished at the end of last year. The city will oversee construction, which is expected to take about two years.

The project also will include replacement of the Panther Hollow Overpass, a nearby small bridge with problems that would have created another traffic disruption if it were replaced a few years from now.

Anderson has been rated in poor condition since 2012 because of advanced deterioration of the concrete deck and advanced section loss throughout the structure. It opened in 1938 and carries about 20,000 vehicles a day.

This is the first of the major bridges owned by the city to move forward to construction since Gainey ordered a review of its 146 structures after the January 2022 collapse of the Fern Hollow Bridge above Frick Park in Squirrel Hill barely three weeks after he took office. The National Transportation Safety Board ruled in February that collapse, which injured nine people, occurred because the city ignored repeated inspection reports that showed serious problems with the structure.

Consultant WSP Inc. found, in a report released last month, the bridges will need $471.6 million of bridge work over the next 32 years. That includes $135.4 million for nine that need immediate work, including Anderson.