Ohio Department of Transportation has released a RFQ for the Portsmouth Bypasss Design-Build-Finance-Operate-Maintain (DBFOM) project. The estimated investment amount of the project is $600 million.

The investor will recover the investment via Availability Payments over the term of the agreement, commencing at the opening of the entire length of the Portsmouth Bypass.  However ODOT has reserved dedicated Appalachian funds from prior years for the Project and is contemplating making these funds available to the Developer upon the achievement of defined work progress milestones. The RFQ states that this will be decided in the RFP stage.

The RFQ was issued June 7, potential contractors have until June 17 to submit questions about the proposed project. ODOT will have answers to the questions on June 24. Statements of qualification for the project is due July 12 with the announcement of the shortlisted proposers released on August 9.

Following shortlisting, ODOT currently anticipates the following procurement activities and schedule:

• Issue Draft RFP:  September, 2013
• Issue Final RFP: November, 2013
• Proposals due: Q1, 2014
• Selection of Developer: Q2, 2014
• Commercial and Financial close: Q2 / Q3, 2014

The Project

The Portsmouth Bypass is a four-lane, divided, limited-access highway around the City of Portsmouth in Scioto County, Ohio. The highway, to be designated State Route 823 (SR 823), is known as the Portsmouth Bypass and will comprise 16 miles of four lane divided highway, bypassing approximately 26 miles of US 52 and US 23 through Portsmouth. The project includes construction of five new interchanges (U.S. 52, S.R. 140, Shumway Hollow Road, Lucasville Minford Road and U.S. 23.)