CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – Charlottesville City Council endorsed the $12.6-million Dairy Road Bridge reconstruction project on Monday night, but not before giving staff marching orders to negotiate an incentive to shorten the construction time projected at this time as 12-to-14 months.

“I want that effort to be undertaken, and that there is still time to undertake that effort, then I want it undertaken because I don’t want to just say we’re willing to live with 14 months,” said Councilor Lloyd Snook at the meeting.

City Public Works Deputy Director Michael Goddard presented the plan along with the detours.

He went through different construction scenarios, but because of a lack of space and right-of-way, there’s no way to do the project without having a bridge over the 250 bypass during the project.

“And to clarify, the 12-to-14 months includes contingency, it’s all entirely possible it gets finished earlier anyway?,” asked Councilor Natalie Oschrin to John Oliver, the consultant with the city working with VDOT on the project.

“We would fully expect that we would incentivize the contractor to say if you finish this in, the bridge is closed and opened in 9 months or 10 months, we’ll pick the right number, if you hit that date you are eligible for financial incentives,” Oliver responded. “On the contrary, too, there are ways to discipline the contractor if you say if you take longer than 14 months, we’re going to start charging you by the day because you’re paying an engineer and inspector to be out every day because of the contractor.”

Oliver noted there’s a balancing act, though, in making sure the time frame is correct and realistic.

“If you want to get your kitchen renovated and you tell everybody they’ll have a week to do it, you’re going to run everybody off or someone’s going to give you an outrageous number,” Oliver said.

Under the plan, the project is set to be advertised in August for construction to begin in December.

“It’s setting the wide enough window to get competition to bring prices down while not giving contractors more time than they really need to get it done,” Oliver said.

Oliver informed Council the financial incentive is usually negotiated within the price of the project.

If a project is completed in 9-or-10 months of a 12-to-14 month schedule, the incentive money for the earlier finish is paid out of the cost it would have been to keep the daily engineer and inspector out on the job for the whole duration.

The projected schedule with the December 2026 construction start closes the bridge in Feburary 2027 with a new bridge opening in March 2028 and construction complete in May 2028.