ASHEVILLE – Work on the largest section of the Interstate 26 Connector project will first start along the banks of the French Broad River, North Carolina Department of Transportation officials said during the Jan. 9 Council of Independent Business Owners meeting.
“One of the first things will be some of the early foundations for the big bridge, the causeway — those sorts of things,” NCDOT Division 13 Construction Engineer Nathan Moneyham told the Citizen Times Jan. 9. “All that depends upon the process we’re in and getting the permit approved.”
At $1.14 billion, the contract with Archer-Wright Joint Venture for the B and D sections, collectively known as the “North Section,” is the biggest design-build contract the NCDOT has ever awarded, the Citizen Times previously reported. The I-26 Connector project, without the currently unfunded Section C, is estimated to cost over $1.8 billion. Moneyham described Section B, which features multiple freeway bridges across the French Broad and the widening of I-26 to six lanes north of Haywood Road to Patton Avenue, as presenting a “funding challenge” for the state agency…