Skanska wins $114 million contract to rehabilitate I-395 bridge over the Potomac River
Skanska will lead a design-build rehabilitation of the Arland D. Williams Jr. Memorial Bridge, including converting its bascule span to a fixed span.
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Skanska has been awarded a $114 million design-build contract to rehabilitate the I-395 Northbound Bridge over the Potomac River. The project concerns the Arland D. Williams Jr. Memorial Bridge, part of the 14th Street bridges, and is being delivered for the District Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration.
The central structural change is a conversion of the bridge’s bascule span to a fixed span. Skanska’s announcement describes the work as a design-build rehabilitation rather than a replacement, keeping the project focused on extending the useful life of an existing crossing while changing one of its defining movable elements.
That conversion matters because the span will no longer operate as a drawbridge once the work is complete. The contract covers the rehabilitation of the northbound crossing itself, with Skanska responsible for taking the design through construction under a single delivery model.
The bridge carries approximately 90,000 vehicles each day, making the condition of the crossing a regional transportation issue rather than a narrowly local repair. ARLnow reports that the rehabilitation is expected to extend the bridge’s service life by 75 years, a notably long planning horizon for work on an existing piece of infrastructure.
Construction is planned to begin in early 2027. That schedule places the project in the near-term construction pipeline, while the fixed-span conversion and broader rehabilitation are intended to keep the crossing serving traffic for decades beyond the work itself.
The result will be a substantially renewed I-395 northbound crossing over the Potomac, delivered through a $114 million DDOT/FHWA contract and designed around a simpler fixed span. For the thousands of daily trips that use the bridge, the important part of the announcement is less the contract award itself than the prospect of extending this route’s service life by another 75 years.