E.S. Wagner Co. served as the prime contractor on two contracts that were part of the North Carolina Department of Transportation’s Express Design-Build Program. This progressive initiative, which extended over a number of years, targeted the replacement of all the structurally deficient or obsolete bridges throughout the entire state of North Carolina. E.S. Wagner’s projects were both located in Division 6 of the NCDOT in Columbus County and called for the replacement of a total of twenty-four such bridges.
E.S. Wagner’s design partner for both projects was Summit Design and Engineering, who also handled the construction engineering and inspection on the first and larger contract. While many conventional design-build projects can take years from the initial project advertisement to the actual start of construction, his expedited approach to the design-build method of project delivery utilized existing NCDOT standards, the area experience of a team of subconsultants selected by E.S. Wagner and Summit and the recommendations of E.S. Wagner to provide for a start of construction only eleven months after selection of the short-listed teams. Since the progression through the sites was essentially linear, the design process could follow the same logic allowing for the initial sites to be under construction before the design was even started on the bridge sites that were scheduled to take place late in the contract period.
The twenty-four bridges would ultimately be replaced by nineteen all new, modern bridges, four aluminum box culverts that we be assembled in place and a cast in place reinforced concrete box culvert.
Over the full construction schedule, which covered parts of five seasons, E.S. Wagner Company would install approximately 2,300 cubic yards of structural concrete, set more than 18,000 feet of cored slab and box beam precast superstructure members and drive nearly 27,000 feet of steel foundation piles.
