Bluefield Daily Telegraph, Bluefield, WV

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September 2, 2009

$90M gets Phase 1 up, running

Bizzack LLC takes helm of Route 460 Connector

By CHARLES OWENS

GRUNDY, Va. — The Virginia Department of Transportation awarded a $90 million contract Wednesday to design and build phase one of the U.S. Route 460 Connector project in Buchanan County.

The new Route 460 Connector will link the new four-lane corridor with the Hawk’s Nest section of the Coalfields Expressway in Buchanan County. The contract was awarded to Bizzack Construction LLC of Lexington, which will begin constructing the new connector route at the Kentucky state line and extend east .833 miles into Buchanan County, VDOT spokeswoman Michelle Earl said.

The project construction will take four years. Earl said it will be completed in the summer of 2014. Earl said the Route 460 Connector, combined with the Coalfields Expressway and the Route 460 relocation project in Grundy, will ultimately combine to create a four-lane corridor all the way from Route 460 at the Kentucky state line to the Claypool Hill section of Tazewell County.

“It will be a great improvement for access for folks traveling along Route 460 into Kentucky and Virginia and it will also bring economic development to the Breaks Interstate Park by enhancing access to that facility,” Earl said.

Approximately 80 percent of the project is being funded by the federal government with a 20 percent match by the Commonwealth, Earl said.

The project includes the design and construction of two twin bridges that will be approximately 1,600 linear feet in length. When completed, Earl said the structures will be more than 250-feet high and will be the tallest bridges of their type in Virginia. The Route 460 Connector project also includes an eight-mile four-lane divided highway, and an access ramp to Route 80 improving entry to the Breaks Interstate Park in Buchanan County.

Earl said Wednesday’s award was an actual rebid of the project after the original bids had to be thrown out.

“It just so happens that it was rebid to Bizzack again,” Earl said of the phase one contract. “We are actually having our kick off meeting today between Bizzack and VDOT.”

In addition to the $90 million contract for the Route 460 Connector, VDOT also approved a $644,494 contract Wednesday to Mac Construction Inc. of Oakwood to pave a half-mile section of Route 667 in Buchanan County, located between the Russell County line and the Rowe community, and paving for two one-mile sections of Route 629 in Buchanan County. The first one-mile section is located between the Shorts Gap and Keen Mountain area, and the second one-mile section is between the Keen Mountain and Pilgrim’s Knob communities.



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