HOCHTIEF consortium wins contract for highway bridge over St. Lawrence River

A bidding consortium made up of HOCHTIEF PPP Solutions North America, ACS, Flatiron, Dragados Canada and a Canadian partner, SNC-Lavalin, has reached financial close - i.e. concluded the financial negotiations - on schedule for the new Champlain Bridge Corridor Project, one of the most important transportation infrastructure projects in North America. In the center of Montreal, Canada, the consortium will construct the new Champlain Bridge across the St. Lawrence River. The partners of the public-private partnership (PPP) will plan, finance, build and operate the project. The construction volume for the "New Champlain Bridge Corridor Project" is approximately EUR 1.6 billion. HOCHTIEF PPP Solutions has a 25 percent stake in the project company "Signature on the Saint-Lawrence Group".

The existing Champlain Bridge, built in 1962, is one of the most heavily-used bridges in Canada: 40 to 60 million vehicles cross the St. Lawrence River here every year. Building a new eight-lane 3.4-kilometer highway bridge should greatly improve the traffic flow on this important commercial and transit route between the USA and Canada. Construction work is scheduled to take four-and-a-half years. The new bridge should be completed at the end of 2018 while the remaining parts of the overall route - a total of around eight kilometers - should be finished by the end of 2019. Once the new bridge is completed, the project company will operate the route for 30 years, including a toll system.

"Construction of this new bridge in such a prominent location is currently one of the most important PPP projects in North America. We will be tackling this challenge with our bundled competence and experience," said Marcelino Fernández Verdes, CEO of HOCHTIEF.

Alongside the Northeast Anthony Henday Drive in Edmonton, Alberta/Canada, and the Presidio Parkway, California/USA, this is already the third major PPP transportation infrastructure project in North America that is being developed by several Group companies.