APAC - Virginia Inc., one of the APAC group of companies, a wholly owned highway construction division of Ashland Inc. announced recently the signing of a $236 million contract with the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) to construct 17 miles of roadway and 27 new or widened bridges in the Richmond, Va. area. The project is expected to take approximately 29 months to complete, and represents the largest highway construction contract ever awarded to APAC, the nation’s leading provider of publicly funded highway construction services.

"We are pleased, even humbled, by the confidence that the Virginia Department of Transportation has placed in APAC," said Charles F. Potts, president of APAC, Inc. "For many years, we have believed that the fundamental strength of APAC was our workers and our ability to manage very large, complex projects. With this new challenge, our employees have the opportunity to showcase their skills of building high quality roads safely, on time and on budget."

Due to the scale of the project, APAC has developed a project team approach to the management of the construction. CH2M Hill will serve as a design subcontractor, Koch Performance Road, Inc. will provide quality assurance and quality control, and a twenty-year warranty on the project, and United Construction will serve as a subcontractor for bridge construction.

The project, known as the Highway 288 project, will consist of 10 miles of new roadway construction, and 7 miles of partially rebuilt roadway. In the course of the project, 24 new bridges will be constructed and 3 existing bridges will be widened. Extensive earthwork is involved, including approximately 3,000,000 cubic yards of excavation, and the import of 1,300,000 cubic yards of fill. It is estimated that 300,000 tons of hot-mix asphalt will be utilized in the project.

Construction is scheduled to begin in the first calendar quarter of 2001.