FDOT shares progress on years-long Howard Frankland Bridge project

FDOT shares Howard Frankland Bridge progress

Years into a major project along the Howard Frankland Bridge, the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) is sharing progress crews have made.

TAMPA, Fla. - The new Howard Frankland Bridge replacement project is one of the biggest projects in the Tampa Bay area over the past four years, and on Thursday FDOT gave a tour sharing progress crews have made so far.

"We are standing right now on the general use lanes that will be servicing southbound traffic from Hillsborough County to Pinellas County," said David Alonso, the construction senior project manager with Florida Department of Transportation in Tampa.

The barges and cranes have helped make major progress.

"This year we finished up pile driving in the beginning of the year – was a really big accomplishment for the team and [we] have really just been doing a lot of concrete pours, setting beams, casting deck and really making it look like a real bridge," said Greg Deese, the FDOT resident engineer.

Workers are making grooves in the deck now, and getting the concrete there is a process.

"Conveyor brings it over here and then gets placed by that machine behind me. It's a big yellow machine called a Bidwell and that levels," said Alonso.

FDOT said crews are done with 84 percent of the bridge decks or what will become traffic lanes. FDOT officials said they expect to connect both sides of the deck by the end of 2024.

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The $865 million project will have 8 lanes, four general use and four express lanes, plus a separate pedestrian and bike path. The new bridge will become the new I-275 southbound lanes and the current southbound bridge will turn into the new I-275 northbound lanes.

"We're looking forward to opening the new bridge in the spring of 2025 and completing the project sometime in early 2026," said Deese.

FDOT is working with Archer Western as the primary general contractor, with Traylor Brothers acting as a joint venture partner on the project.

In working on the project, crews have drilled about 62 miles worth of piling into the ground for the foundation and used about 224,265 cubic yards of concrete for the three-mile bridge.