The contract is signed. Canada awarded $79 million in June to advance the replacement of the Alexandra Bridge, the century-old interprovincial crossing between Ottawa and Gatineau, with the work going to Capital Crossing Constructors, a consortium of Webuild Civil Works, Samsung C&T Ontario and Green Infrastructure Partners.
A progressive design-build approach
The structure of the deal says as much as the dollar figure. Public Services and Procurement Canada is using progressive design-build, where the owner and the builder refine requirements, schedule, pricing, and risk together before locking in a guaranteed price. It’s a delivery model that’s gained ground on complex public jobs because it pulls the contractor into design early, when changes are cheap, instead of fighting over them later through change orders.
For this stage, the design-builder advances the approved concept for the new bridge. That design, known as Motion, won Federal Land Use and Design Approval from the National Capital Commission in January. It features three curved arches meant to echo the flow of the Ottawa River, a deliberate nod to the setting between two downtowns.
Why the model matters here
The Alexandra Bridge has carried traffic since 1900, and replacing an active interprovincial link without severing it is the kind of problem progressive design-build was built for. Phasing, river work, and coordination across two provinces all benefit from a contractor at the table during design. The alternative, a fully designed bid handed to the low bidder, tends to surface its surprises mid-construction.
This won’t be the last contract on the program, and the $79 million covers the next stage rather than the full build. But it moves a long-discussed replacement from concept toward steel. For owners weighing how to deliver aging-infrastructure replacements, the shift toward collaborative delivery on jobs like this one is the trend to watch.