BUCKSPORT – The Maine Department of Transportation on Tuesday announced that it has signed a $56 million contract with Cianbro/Reed & Reed LLC for the final phase of construction of the replacement for the Waldo-Hancock Bridge.

The contract will bring the total cost of the bridge project to $83.8 million, according to state Transportation Commissioner David Cole. That’s higher than the $75 million price tag department officials estimated when they began planning the project a year and a half ago.

Cole noted that since planning began, material costs, including concrete, steel, copper and petroleum-based products, have driven construction costs higher despite efforts to keep the cost down. Still, Cole said, the project will be one that everyone can be proud of.

“We’re getting good value for our investment,” he said.

The project is about one-third complete, Cole said, and it is the result of a lot of teamwork among all those involved in the project, including the work crews, the design team, the department and the community, he said.

The bridge design, which includes an observatory atop the western bridge tower, has received national recognition, the commissioner said.

Roads and Bridges magazine, in its annual bridge edition published this month, has named the project the best bridge of 2004, Cole said. In addition, the Federal Highway Administration, which has worked with the department since the early days of the planning for the new bridge, has bestowed its annual Innovation Award on the bridge team.

“That’s their highest honor,” Cole said. “That’s a reflection on all the partners who have been involved in the project. The award was given not only for the new bridge, but for the handling of the existing bridge and the work to get trucks back on it.”

The department lowered the weight limit on the Waldo-Hancock Bridge in 2003 after discovering that it had deteriorated to the point that it was unsafe for heavy truck traffic. A $4 million strengthening project, which added support cables to the 73-year-old structure, allowed the department to raise the weight limit to 80,000 pounds.

The new bridge will have a 100,000-pound weight limit.

The project has been an economic boon for the state, according to Jack Parker, Reed & Reed president. Approximately $70 million will pass through the two partner companies working on the project and will have an “economic ripple effect” across the state, he said.

“That’s very good news for the state of Maine,” he said.

Crews from Cianbro/Reed & Reed have been working on the project since groundbreaking last December and have raised the pylons on the Verona Island and Prospect sides of the bridge to a height of 141 feet. They are now building the “false work,” a metal structure that will become a part of the bridge deck and help transfer the weight of the travel area through the cables to the pylons, according to Tom Doe, DOT project manager.

Once that work is completed, Doe said, the crews will start building “up and out,” building the deck out over the river from both ends as they continue to build the towers. The towers will rise to a height of 420 feet above the Penobscot River, almost twice the height of the towers on the existing bridge.

The pylons will be completed before the deck work, Doe said, and he expects that crews will be putting the finishing touches on the observatory atop the western pylon by this time next year. The accelerated construction schedule calls for the bridge to be completed by November 2005, although Doe said it is possible that the observatory could be open to the public as early as Columbus Day that year.

The project ties the observatory to the historic Fort Knox in Prospect and includes construction of a new parking lot and entrance to the fort as well as an access road to a tiered parking lot near the observatory pylon.

In response to questions, Cole said the existing bridge will be dismantled, but that no plan or schedule for that project has been developed yet. Doe estimated the cost of removing the old bridge at between $10 million and $12 million. A good portion of that cost will come from the removal of the concrete abutments below the river surface, he said. The department is discussing with the U.S. Coast Guard the possibility of leaving the concrete structures in the water and marking them as a navigational hazard.

The department has referred to the new bridge as the “Penobscot River crossing,” but Cole noted that the department does not name bridges. That role falls to the state Legislature, which likely will consider the matter during the upcoming session.