The RFQ closed on 28 July and the evaluation is running. When Sound Transit issues its notice of award, currently estimated for 7 October, somebody takes on the largest single heavy-civil package on the West Seattle Link Extension: a precast segmental cable-stayed bridge across the Duwamish West Waterway, two towers, roughly 2,400 linear feet, plus more than a mile and a half of guideway.
What is in W200
The official title is the Duwamish River Crossing and Aerial Guideway, procured as heavy-civil GC/CM under solicitation GC 0030-25 and shown as “Evaluating” on the agency’s procurement snapshot dated 30 August. The run is SODO to the future Delridge Station.
Scope covers precast segmental elevated guideway with aerial crossings of roadways, railroads, waterways and private property; the cable-stayed bridge including foundations, both towers and the main and back span super and substructures; at-grade guideway with cut and fill retaining walls; earthwork and slope stabilization; demolition, clearing and grubbing, utility relocations, sound walls, road works and site restoration. Contract amount is stated at $725 to $900 million, with a small-business goal of 6.5 percent of construction services.
Note where that range comes from. It appears on a Washington State Office of Minority and Women’s Business Enterprises page authored by a proposer for a small-business outreach event, not in a Sound Transit cost estimate. It is consistent with the RFQ scope and it is hosted on a state site, but it is a proposer’s characterization.
The schedule most people have wrong
Secondary coverage has been reporting award in early 2027 and groundbreaking in mid-to-late 2027. Sound Transit’s own documents say otherwise. The snapshot estimates notice of intent to award on 7 October 2026. The outreach material puts preconstruction notice to proceed in Q1 2027 and construction notice to proceed in Q4 2028.
That two-year gap between preconstruction and construction NTP is the defining feature of GC/CM delivery and it is exactly what the method is for: the builder is on board for design coordination, constructability and pricing well before anyone mobilizes. Reading it as a delay misreads the contract.
Around it, the board adopted two contract actions on 25 June. Motion M2026-22 exercised a Jacobs Engineering option for Phase 2 civil engineering design at $238,740,159 with 20 percent contingency, bringing the cumulative authorized ceiling to $341,359,256 over 22 months, advancing design from about 30 percent to 100 percent. Motion M2026-21 extended the program management contract with Connect Seattle Partners, the Mott MacDonald and WSP joint venture, by $48,781,580 for one year across both West Seattle and Ballard. Be careful with the Jacobs number: $341 million is the total authorized ceiling, not the price of final design.
One thing we are not printing
A shortlist of four contractors has circulated this week in regional coverage. We could not confirm those names against any Sound Transit procurement notice, board record or agency release, and state records show at least one major joint venture pursuing W200 that does not appear on the circulating list. A shortlist is a public record and we will publish it when we can source it. Until then it stays out.
Service on the extension, now 3.9 miles and three stations after Avalon Station was removed, is scheduled for 2035, moved out from 2032 under a cost-savings program and verified by third-party schedule review. Comparable long-lead heavy civil elsewhere, such as the E39 Rogfast subsea crossing in Norway, has taken a similar path from a record-setting scope to a multi-contract delivery on a stretched calendar.