NORFOLK, Va. (WAVY) — The Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel expansion project is now expected to be fully completed in August 2027, 18 months later than previously expected.
This comes after VDOT told 10 On Your Side back in August 2023 there was an issue with the project’s tunnel boring machine, and that the expansion was about a year behind schedule.
They were originally projecting work to wrap up in 2025, after work on the more than $3.9 billion expansion started in late 2020.
VDOT made the latest announcement on Thursday, saying the changes came a series of unforeseen circumstances.
They say contractor Hampton Roads Connector Partners first submitted documentation in the spring of 2022 that it had suffered unforeseen cost and schedule impacts since signing the contract for the HRBT in 2019.
“VDOT, in consultation with HRTAC, began a lengthy series of meetings with HRCP to better understand the merits, implications, and magnitude of the alleged impacts,” VDOT said.
VDOT says they ultimately determined it was in the best interest of the project to revise their original agreement executed in 2019, which includes changing the completion timelines and an early completion incentive (a $90 million incentive for HRCP for a “substantial completion” no later than Sept. 25, 2026).
That will keep the project’s cost “nearly within the original budget of $3.9 billion,” per Christopher Hall, VDOT’s Hampton Roads District Engineer.
Despite the challenges, Head said a “tremendous amount of work has been accomplished to date” on the project.
“HRCP has achieved a multitude of unprecedented milestones to include constructing the 15-acre expansion of the North Island, reassembling the second largest tunnel boring machine in North America, completing the largest continuous concrete pour in VDOT history, and boring and building nearly 90% of the first of the two new tunnels.”
VDOT says the project’s substantial completion is now set for Feb. 26, 2027, with a “revised final completion date” of August 27, 2027.
Meanwhile the other major bridge-tunnel expansion in the region, which is creating a new tunnel on the 17.6-mile Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel, isn’t expected to be complete until May 2027. The more than $750 million CBBT expansion was originally planned to open in 2022, but has faced several issues. The latest was due to the tunnel’s boring machine hitting a large ship anchor on the ocean floor.