FOUR CORNERS STATES EDITION
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January 26 2025 Vol. III • No. 2
“The Nation’s Best Read Construction Newspaper… Founded in 1957.” Your Four Corners Connection • Dennis Hogeboom • 1-877-877-4997 • dennishogeboom@cegltd.com
16th Street Mall Rebuild in Denver Overcomes Setbacks, Fall Finish Set By Lori Tobias CEG CORRESPONDENT
Work on a three-and-a-half year, $175.4 million project to update Denver’s iconic 16th Street Mall is more than three-quarters complete, with a target finish line of fall 2025. Completion was set back nine months from the original schedule due to some unexpected challenges. Those setbacks also put the project $26.4 million over the original $149 million budget but, at the same time, ultimately proved helpful when crews with design/build firm PCL Construction Services later encountered similar problems, said Nancy Kuhn, director of the communications division for the City and County of Denver Department of Transportation and Infrastructure. “The primary construction challenge was complex
underground utilities down the transitway, all installed at different times since the late 1800s with varying levels of documentation, including a centuries-old water line, steam lines, storm and sanitary lines, electrical infrastructure, gas networks, over a dozen telecom lines and traffic networks, that are all layered underground,” Kuhn said. “We took what we learned about these various underground utilities in the first few blocks to take new steps in subsequent blocks to minimize impacts to the overall schedule.” The 1.25-mi. 16th Street Mall opened in 1982, conceived by the city as a way of sparking life in a declining downtown. The pedestrian mall, designed by famed architect I.M. Pei, features free shuttles and connects the downtown from Denver Union Station to Civic Center Park and the Colorado State Capital. A Cat 325 excavator demolishes part of the original 16th see MALL page 6
Street Mall.
Loop 303 Extension Among ADOT’s 2025 Phoenix Freeway Plans
Paving and concrete barrier construction on northbound Loop 101.
The Arizona Department of Transportation is looking ahead to starting, continuing or completing construction on several Phoenix-area freeway projects in 2025. Topping ADOT’s list of new construction projects is an extension of Loop 303 from Van Buren Street south to Maricopa County Highway 85 (MC 85) in the Goodyear area. The Loop 303 project, which is in final design, will provide three freeway lanes in each direction between Van Buren Street and Lower Buckeye Road and two lanes in each direction from Lower Buckeye Road to MC 85. New bridges will carry the freeway over several cross streets and the Union Pacific Railroad. The new stretch of Loop 303 will be built where Cotton Lane now carries area traffic.
Work is scheduled to start by fall 2025 and last approximately three years. The following are among ADOT’s other major Phoenixarea freeway projects in 2025: Completion of the I-10 Broadway Curve Improvement Project between the I-17 “Split” and Loop 202 by spring. This has been the largest freeway reconstruction project in ADOT’s history. Work started in fall 2021. Along with new lanes that already have been added along 11 mi. of I-10, crews are finishing elevated ramps providing direct connections at the I-10/State Route 143 interchange. They also will complete two pedestrian/bicyclist bridges and widening the Guadalupe Road bridge over I-10. see ADOT page 2