The Greene County Commission got a firsthand lesson on how precast concrete beams are more in demand and more expensive than they used to be.
The commission voted 3-0 to award a contract to Hartman and Company, Inc., to replace a bridge that spans Farmers Branch on Farm Road 175 in southern Greene County, just north of the Greene-Christian county line.
Greene County put the project out for bids in December 2022, and opened the lone bid it received Jan. 10, 2023. Hartman and Company made the bid of $898,000, about 19 percent higher than an initial estimated cost of $750,000.
“As our engineer went through and tabulated the bid and looked at where the differential was occurring between their estimate and the contractor’s bid, you could identify, basically, the entire differential in the actual precast concrete, the deck beams themselves,” Humphrey said.
Precast deck beams were estimated to cost $175,000 in the initial estimate. Their actual cost is now about $300,000.
“Each bid we’re seeing coming out, that number just seems to be skyrocketing, and it’s a statewide trend,” Humphrey said. “That is just a trend that seems to be continuing.”
The need to move forward
The project, bid and contract are all subject to review by the Missouri Department of Transportation.
“Our engineer has recommended and did recommend that MoDOT go ahead and proceed with the award,” Humphrey said.
Humphrey said there isn’t anything to change with the bridge design to make the project cheaper. He advised the commission to move ahead because the bridge is deficient.
“While the sister bridge to the west was being done, all of the traffic was basically diverted to this structure, and it took a beating during that time,” Humphrey said. “It is not in great shape, and so I think the sooner we can get it done, the better.”
Greene County First District Commissioner Rusty MacLachlan, a contractor by trade, is no stranger to fluctuations in material costs.
“It’s supply and demand,” MacLachlan said. “The federal government is dumping a lot of money into transportation projects right now, and these guys supply these materials all over the country.”
MacLachlan said he agreed with Humphrey’s assessment, and didn’t want to try to put the bridge project back out to bid in an effort to get a better price.
“Hartman is one of our regulars, too, and has been consistently priced fairly and does the work right,” MacLachlan said. “That gives me some comfort, too. If this were a new contractor we hadn’t had any experience with, I would be in favor of putting it back out, but I’m confident that this is fair.”
The project is largely funded through surface development block grant funds through the Ozarks Transportation Organization.
“We’ve got an existing federal agreement to do our typical 80/20, you know, 80 percent of the cost will be borne by the Federal Highway [Commission] and 20 percent by us as the local entity,” Humphrey said.
Rising demand for precast concrete
Farm Road 175 is southwest of where Evans Road intersects with U.S. Highway 65. It runs parallel to Kissick Avenue, or Farm Road 169, where a bridge of similar size underwent replacement.
“A couple of years ago, we replaced kind of a sister bridge to this one, immediately to the west,” Humphrey said. “It’s a very similar-sized structure. We completed that one just a little over a year ago. That bridge was completed under $600,000, and so comparatively, we’re just seeing a steep increase.”
ResearchAndMarkets.com recently examined the cost of precast concrete in a piece published Jan. 4. Its researchers calculated precast concrete was a $151 billion industry in the United States in 2022. It projects that number to grow to more than $234 billion annually by 2028.
The research identified a key market driver as government initiatives for development around the globe.
“Precast concrete can be used to create road barriers, building segments such as walls, and a wide range of shapes and sizes of blocks,” part of the piece reads. “Using precast concrete can help to save money by reducing the time spent on a project. As the parts being used come already created, no time is wasted in forming, framing, pouring, or curing.”
Potential effects elsewhere in Greene County
While the Farm Road 175 bridge project was done through federal grants, Humphrey told the commissioners he worries about what impact a rise in precast concrete costs will have on a major plan by MoDOT to replace structurally deficient bridges.
MoDOT announced its Regional Bridge Program grant awards in September 2022. Three of them are in Greene County.
“Most of those awards were made based on estimates that were, even at that point probably a year old or so,” Humphrey said. “With the steep increase we’ve seen, it won’t shock me if they won’t have to go back and reassess which bridges they’re actually going to be able to fund.”
For the Greene County Highway Department, a bridge set for replacement carries Farm Road 80 over a branch of the Sac River near Ash Grove, and is estimated at $700,000, with $560,00 coming from the federal government. Another bridge carries Farm Road 117 over the Little Sac River east of Willard and is estimated to cost $800,000, with $640,000 coming from the federal government.
The City of Springfield is slated to replace the Walnut Street bridge over Jordan Creek at an estimated cost of $2.4 million, with $1.92 million covered by federal government funding.
“I’m not sure how they’re going to handle that,” Humphrey said. “It’s a concern.”
A total of 28 bridges in MoDOT’s Southwest Region are slated for replacement in 2023 and 2024.
