Thornton Tomasetti gets $9.9 million Army Corps job to design cable hardening for the Brooklyn Bridge

The award was listed in the Defense Department's contract announcements for Oct. 28, reprinted by ClearanceJobs and Aerotech News. It is a firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract for architect-engineer services, set up as a single-award task order contract. The Corps solicited it online and received one bid. It will set work locations and funding order by order and estimates the work will be done by Sept. 29, 2031. The contract number is W912DS-27-D-A001.

The announcement does not say what the hardening involves, what construction might cost or when a construction contract would go out to bid. Because the firm is hired to complete the plans and specifications, some design already exists. We found no public project description from the Corps or from the New York City Department of Transportation, which owns and maintains the bridge.

Thornton Tomasetti says it has done structural rehabilitation and retrofit work on the Brooklyn Bridge for the city's transportation department for more than 15 years. Its project page lists design for redecking the approach ramps, strengthening of the overloaded Franklin Square trusses on the Manhattan approach, emergency redecking of the suspended spans with repairs to 200 floor beams, and a study of deck vibration after crowds walked across during the August 2003 blackout.

The bridge opened in 1883 and hangs from four main cables over a 1,595-foot main span, according to NYC DOT records and the firm.