CEREMONY CELEBRATES COMPLETION OF OHIO'S SINGLE, LARGEST EARTHWORK PROJECT
New S.R. 823 Set To Open Friday MorningMinford (Thursday, December 13, 2018) – After many years of hard work, a lot of persistence and a few hurdles, construction of the long-awaited state Route 823 in Scioto County has been completed, and today state and local officials joined together to celebrate the milestone project for not only the county, but also the state.“We’ve made history here in Scioto County,” said Ohio Department of Transportation Director Jerry Wray. “Not only is this the first time in Ohio’s history ODOT has used a public-private partnership to construct a highway project, but it is also the department’s single, largest modern earthwork project to date.”Wray was joined Thursday by representatives from the Portsmouth Gateway Group, as well as numerous state and local officials, for a ceremonial ribbon cutting to celebrate construction of the department’s largest earthwork project and the first Public-Private Partnership (P3) by ODOT.In 2011, the 129th Ohio General Assembly, led by Governor John Kasich, gave ODOT the authority to seek funding mechanisms through the private sector for projects that might otherwise not be funded. By securing a P3, the entire project has been constructed all at once rather than in phases, as originally scheduled, to accelerate project delivery by at least eight years.Renamed the Southern Ohio Veterans Memorial Highway by the Ohio Legislature, the new route is a 16-mile, four-lane limited access highway from U.S. 23 north of Lucasville to U.S. 52 near Sciotoville, and it completes Ohio’s missing link in the Appalachian Development Highway System. Under a performance-based contract, the design-build-finance-operate-maintain (DBFOM) project delivery is the first public-partnership (P3) of its kind endeavored by ODOTBy Kathleen Fuller
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