Lane Construction wins $258 million contract for Kansas City flood protection project

CHESHIRE, CT – On May 12, The Lane Construction Corporation, U.S. subsidiary of Webuild Group, announced it has been awarded the Kansas City Levees Flood Risk Management Project.

The $258 million U.S. Army Corps of Engineers contract will reduce the risk of a levee breach or overtopping and subsequent major flood damage within the heart of Kansas City’s industrial and commercial districts, reducing the flood risk to over 27,000 residents and employees and more than $10 billion in infrastructure, including one of the largest networks of U.S. Class I rail yards in the nation.

Work anticipated by the contract includes raising the existing levees and floodwalls by an average of four feet, replacement and modification of existing levees and floodwalls, new sections of levees and floodwalls, and numerous rail yard flood gate closure structures located within the states of Kansas and Missouri along some 17 miles of the Argentine, Armourdale, and Central Industrial District (CID) Levee Units on the Kansas River. Work is anticipated to begin in June of 2021 and the job is expected to be completed in 2026.

According to the USACE website, the project also requires over one million cubic yards of earthwork, nearly 25,000 feet of new concrete floodwall, 120 new relief wells, replacement of 12 high-traffic railroad closure structures, improvements to nearly 40 drainage structure, and modifications to over 175 existing utilities. Construction is anticipated to begin in the summer of 2021 and be complete in the spring of 2026.

The Kansas Citys, Missouri and Kansas Levee project, in its entirety, consists of seven levee units including 60 miles of levees and floodwalls, and may cost an estimated $22 billion.

The contract is the most recent win for Lane in the major water resources and large earthwork projects sector, a key growth area for Lane. The company is also working on another smaller U.S. Army Corps of Engineers levee project – The Blue River Basin – in the same area.

Lane has other water projects underway around the country: the construction of a reservoir in South Florida as part of the Everglades restoration and three tunnel projects that will bring clean water to the Washington, D.C., Seattle, Washington, and Fort Wayne, Indiana communities. Lane’s current water projects account for over $1.5 billion worth of work in the company’s portfolio.

Lane’s Northeast Boundary Tunnel (NEBT) in Washington D.C., a $580 million tunnel project, had just finished its excavation within the last month. Lane’s Tunnel Boring Machine “MudHoney” was lowered into the ground in Seattle, Washington, on April 16, for a similar tunnel project.

Both tunnels in D.C. and Seattle seek to reduce residential flooding and combined sewer overflows.

SOURCE: Lane Construction