Awards begin to roll in for December highway letting that tops $125M

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The Wisconsin Department of Transportation this week awarded about $55 million in work as part of its December bid letting, bringing the total for this round of contracts to $125 million.

Largest among the awards this week were  two single-bid contracts that came in within the agency’s estimates.

Vinton Construction was the lone bidder for a trio of street-reconstruction projects in the city of Manitowoc. The company’s $13.3 million offer came in under the department’s top-end estimates for the work, however, and WisDOT awarded the contract this week.

Chippewa Concrete Services also was the only bidder on a project to resurface U.S. Highway 2 in Superior. The company’s $7 million bid was consistent with the agency’s estimates and WisDOT signed the contract for the job this week.

Various other large projects that were part of WisDOT’s December letting have yet to be awarded. Black River Falls-based Hoffman Construction was the low bidder on three of them, worth a combined $28.5 million.

In the biggest of the three, Hoffman bid $15.6 million and beat out four rivals a contract to rebuild the Highway 12/18 Beltline interchange on Interstate 39. The department’s estimate for that work was between $20 million and $25 million. Hoffman was also the lowest of six bidders, with a $12.3 million bid, for four separate projects near Foxconn Technology Group’s campus in Racine County. Hoffman separately outbid five companies with a $2.6 million offer for a project on U.S. Highway 12 in Jackson County.

The December bid letting included several other notable projects. Among them was Edgerton Contractors’ $11.8 million bid for three street-reconstruction projects in the city of Madison, which won out over three other bidders. The bid came in slightly higher than WisDOT’s estimates of between $9 million and $11.2 million for the work.

Zenith Tech’s $9.8 million offer for a pair of freeway projects in Ozaukee County also edged out a bid from Lunda Construction, whose bid was $45,000 higher. Follow @natebeck9