KWAME is overseeing and monitoring the Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE), Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) and workforce development aspects of all MoDOT contracts on the river bridge portion of the project. KWAME also is providing construction schedule management services to MoDOT, including analysis of the main span contractor’s baseline and monthly update schedules.

MoDOT’s successful efforts to expand job access and diversity in transportation projects, first implemented on the New I-64 expansion project in St. Louis, has been named the Missouri Model by the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit Conference of Minority Transportation Officials (COMTO).

As of November 30, 2012, minority workers have performed more than 23 percent of the 1,132,338 construction work hours on projects associated with the new Mississippi River Bridge in St. Louis. Women workers have performed 5.3 percent of the construction work hours.

The U.S. Department of Labor set goals to encourage at least a 14.7 percent minority workforce and at least a 6.9 percent female workforce on any federally funded project in the region, including the new Mississippi River Bridge. In addition to the labor workforce, 113 certified minority- and women-owned companies have been awarded 229 contracts totaling more than $108 million, more than 15 percent of the project’s cost of roughly $700 million.

The Mississippi River Bridge project includes 38 separate projects, such as approaches on both the Illinois and Missouri sides to move traffic to the bridge. The bridge, which will carry Interstate 70 traffic across the Mississippi River, will open with two lanes in each direction and will be wide enough for future restriping to three lanes in each direction.

Kwame Building Group (KWAME), an employee-owned company, is a pure program and construction management firm providing estimating, scheduling, project planning, value engineering and other project management services as an independent advocate for owners and developers. KWAME was named a 2012 “Top 100 Construction Management-for-Fee/PM Firm” by Engineering News Record, the construction industry’s leading news and analysis publication; and was selected as one of RCGA’s "Top 50 Companies in the St. Louis Region.” KWAME’s public and private sector projects include educational facilities, major airports nationwide, light-rail systems, hospitals, wastewater treatment facilities and government facilities. KWAME is headquartered in St. Louis with division offices in Atlanta, Dallas, New Orleans, Oklahoma City, Phoenix, Pittsburgh and Seattle. For more information, visit www.kwamebuildinggroup.com or call 314.862.5344.

Photos courtesy of Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT)

Media Contact
Mary Schanuel
[email protected]
314-266-7035