The Nevada Department of Transportation has awarded a contract to rehabilitate the aging Interstate 515 viaduct from Interstate 15 to Eastern Avenue, estimated to cost $38.8 million to Las Vegas Paving Corp.
Officials said the project will extend the service life of the viaduct while plans to replace the 60-year-old structure are finalized.
The current project will repair and overlay the 1.2 million-square-foot viaduct deck surface, as well as reconstruct the Casino Center Boulevard off-ramp hinge while retrofitting selected viaduct columns. The project will also add a new southbound auxiliary lane between Interstate 15 and Eastern Avenue and widen the Eastern Avenue southbound offramp to two lanes.
Other improvements include reconstructing the Eastern Avenue and Desert Inn Road bridges to repair fatigue cracks in the structural steel box girders.
Construction is set to begin in mid-April, but that is a tentative date. The contractor will work on the project six days a week. Before the pandemic, the impacted stretch of interstate averages 183,000 vehicles a day. Heavy trucks only accounted for 1.2 percent of that total traffic average. The total project time to completion is estimated to be 370-working days.
Because of that, the construction contract has an incentive written into it for up to $1.38 million if the project is completed early. If the project is completed late, the company will face penalties of $16,250 per day. Funded with state and federal funds, the project is expected to be finished by mid-2022 and will create 500 direct, indirect, and induced local jobs.