The New York DOT has picked Whitestone, New York-based E.E. Cruz, a subsidiary of Flatiron, to construct the $137.7 million span that will replace the Bronx River Parkway Bridge, according to a Flatiron press release shared with Construction Dive.
The project aims to improve safety on the crossing and mobility in the Bronx more broadly. The span is showing its age — in July, a bridge girder buckled while a New York DOT maintenance crew was conducting urgent structural repairs, which snarled travel for rail passengers below, according to CBS.
The existing span goes over Amtrak and CSX tracks and will require collaboration with those entities as well as MTA and its ongoing Penn Station Access project.
In addition to building a new bridge, the bid-build contract entails improving roadway alignment, building standard 12-foot travel lanes, adding shoulders and constructing an exit ramp to East 177th Street. The contractor plans to use a custom lifting system to minimize traffic and railway disruption during construction.
“The innovative construction solution proposed by E.E. Cruz includes using a custom-engineered lifting system versus a conventional crane setup to build the mainline of the bridge,” according to the release. “During construction, this should reduce Bronx River Parkway lane closures as well as Amtrak/CSX general track outages that are required for demolition and construction of the new structure.”
Construction is scheduled to begin this month and is expected to be complete in August 2026.