STATE AWARDS CONTRACT FOR DESIGN OF NEW CAPE BRIDGE

The Missouri Highway and Transportation Department has awarded a contract to a Kansas City firm for the preliminary design of the $89 million Mississippi River highway bridge at Cape Girardeau.

The bridge is scheduled to be completed in the year 2000.

Tom Stehn, the department's District 10 chief designer at Sikeston, said the design contract was awarded to the firm of Howard, Needles, Tammen & Bergendoff. The preliminary design of the new bridge is to be completed this summer.

Stehn said the design of the bridge is unlike any other bridge in this area.

"The structure will be a cable stay design," he said. "Another contract will be let this fall for the final design for both a concrete and steel alternate for the bridge. The final design is expected to be completed sometime in 1994."

Stehn said the department is in the process of buying the right-of-way for the project from Interstate 55 to the Mississippi River. At this time, 25 of the 133 tracts located in the path of the right-of-way for the new highway and approach to the bridge have been purchased.

Stehn said a grading contract for the construction of the newly relocated Highway 74 and I-55 interchange is the design stage and is scheduled to be let in late fall of this year.