Ames Construction Wins $290M South Dakota Bridge Replacement
Burnsville, Minn.-based Ames Construction landed a $290 million design-bid-build contract to replace South Dakota’s longest bridge, the Platte-Winner Bridge on State Highway 44, ENR reports.
The South Dakota Transportation Commission awarded the package, which also covers a smaller bridge replacement in Douglas County. State officials say it will be the largest project the South Dakota Dept. of Transportation has ever led.
Market Impact
Ames’ winning bid came in $40 million over the state’s estimate for the Platte-Winner span, though its $652,000 bid for the smaller Douglas County bridge landed about $64,500 below the state’s projection. Three other bidders competed for the package: Lunda Construction Co. at $306 million, Kraemer North America at $313 million, and Platte-Winner Constructors at $451 million.
Julie Stevenson, spokesperson for the South Dakota Dept. of Transportation, said in an email that the bids likely exceeded the engineer’s estimate “due to the size and complexity of the project, current construction-market conditions for both materials and labor, and the project’s remote, rural location.”
The new Platte-Winner Bridge over the Missouri River will be a steel girder structure supported on drilled shafts, stretching roughly 5,770 ft and widened from 28 ft to 36 ft, replacing the current 5,655-ft bridge that opened in 1966. The existing structure has suffered repeated landslides tied to its alignment, racking up millions of dollars in repair and mitigation costs, and the state says it has reached the end of its useful life. The new bridge is slated to open to traffic by June 2030, with demolition of the old span set for November 2031.
What It Means for Subcontractors
- Drilled shaft and deep foundation crews should watch for subcontract packages tied to the Missouri River crossing, given the design calls for drilled-shaft support piers rather than traditional pile foundations.
- Structural steel fabricators and erectors have a clear target: a 5,770-ft steel girder bridge, one of the largest active heavy-civil jobs in the Northern Plains, with construction running through the June 2030 completion date.
- Firms in remote or rural mobilization logistics, including trucking, temporary housing, and materials staging, should note that the state itself flagged the project’s remote location as a cost driver, meaning premium rates may be available for support services in southeast South Dakota through 2030.
- Demolition contractors should mark November 2031 as the target window for removal of the existing 1966 bridge, a separate scope likely to follow substantial completion of the new structure.
- General contractors and specialty subs tracking competitive positioning should note the wide bid spread, from Ames’ $290 million to Platte-Winner Constructors’ $451 million, signaling significant uncertainty in market pricing for large rural bridge work that could affect how packages are bundled or re-bid on future South Dakota DOT projects.
