With many long work hours, including working most weekends including Sundays, the contractor finished work early, which allowed opening the taxiways a month early on December 5. The relocated client was moved back to its hangar, and Taxiways G and K were reopened to aircraft traffic.

State Roads—Gold

Project:                 State Trunk Highway 83, Mukwonago to Genesee Road, Wisc.

Contractor:            Zignego Company, Inc.

Owner:                Wisconsin Department of Transportation

Engineer:              exp.

The project involves the reconstruction of State Highway (STH) 83 in Waukesha County, Wisc. It begins at the north city limits of the City of Mukwonago, goes north through the Village of Genesee, and ends at the intersection of State Trunk Highway 59 west of the City of Waukesha. STH83 is a direct north-south link between Interstate 43 and Interstate 94 west of Milwaukee. This was a very complex paving project that reconstructed 6 miles of an existing two-lane rural road to a 2-lane and 4-lane divided highway including 12 intersections and 3 roundabouts.

Significant planning was required to pave a range of sections varying from a four-lane divided urban roadway to a two-lane rural undivided road. There were a total of 12 different typical sections, as well as bicycle lanes on both sides for the full length of the project.

The Zignego Company was awarded this Wisconsin DOT contract with a low bid of $19.65 million. This included 710,000 CY of excavation subcontracted to James Peterson and Sons of Medford, Wisc. The two companies worked together to accomplish the grading and the paving of 254,120 SY of concrete pavement. Wisconsin DOT originally designed the project to be a two-year project with the roadway open to traffic.

After the Wisconsin DOT public information process, it was decided to close the roadway and complete the project in one year. The grading was a success, and the DOT’s SE Region nominated James Peterson and Sons for their 2011 annual Outstanding Highway Construction Award for Grading. The goal was to minimize the impacts to the City of Mukwonago and business. With the grading and base work completed, the concrete paving began on April 28, 2011. By Memorial Day all construction was completed within the city limits.

The intersection of STH83 and STH59 is very busy with large volumes of commuter traffic daily. The contract required that all construction on the roundabout had to be completed within a 10 day period. This included the grading, base, paving and ancillary concrete. The full closure of the intersection began after Labor Day and was achieved. The public relations challenge on this project was to provide full access to all of the businesses and homes during the grading and paving. Also, emergency services had to be able to navigate through the project at all times. WisDOT applauded the efforts of the contractors as there were no complaints from homeowners.

The Zignego quality control was excellent. Meeting or exceeding the combination of quality specifications for strength, air, ride, and thickness resulted in the contractor receiving a net bonus of more than $66,000 for the project.

The new roadway completely transformed an old roadway that was functionally obsolete, unsafe, and whose pavement was in poor condition to one that is safe, bright, attractive, and modern . A ribbon cutting at the completion of the project was very well attended by the residents, who celebrated their new road.