The westbound Washington Bridge is coming down in September. What to know about the contract.

PROVIDENCE – The McKee administration has given the go-ahead to a team assembled by Aetna Bridge Co. of Warwick to demolish the condemned westbound span of the Washington Bridge.

In state lingo, the administration executed a "purchase order" for the $45.8-million demolition contract on Tuesday, which is tantamount to what state officials call a "notice to proceed."

The demolition is not likely to begin until September.

When will the bridge be rebuilt? No company bid on the separate contract the state offered to replace the bridge.

When will the Washington Bridge demolition start?

Asked about the timing of the demolition, state Department of Transportation spokeswoman Lisbeth Pettingill told The Journal: "We anticipate that mobilization [will] start in August and actual demo in late September." Asked what mobilization entails, she said, "Setting up the site, getting the barge in place, moving equipment and resources to the site."

In late June, a DOT review team chose Aetna Bridge Co. – which built the bridge in 1968 ? over the one other bidder for the demolition contract, even though Aetna's $45.8-million bid was slightly higher of the two bids and at least 48% higher than the $31 million projected cost.

If the job gets done earlier than anticipated, Aetna could get another $3 million in incentive payments.

Aetna went into the competition with a team that included:

• Jacobs Engineering Group as lead designer, J.R. Vinagro as the demolition subcontractor, Siefert Associates for construction engineering, Freeman Companies for traffic engineering, Narragansett Engineering for surveying, Oliveira Infrastructure for highway design support, Thielsch Engineering for construction quality control and Advocacy Solutions for public relations.

Seven months after the bridge closure, McKee administration officials acknowledge they do not have any sense of:

• When a new bridge will be built

• How much it will cost

• Who will build it

• How decades of repair projects failed to maintain the bridge's integrity or even identify hidden deterioration within the pre-stressed concrete beams

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Washington Bridge demolition will start in September