Norfolk Southern Selects 4 Design Consultant Teams for CREATE Project EW2

CHICAGO – In an announcement, CREATE announced Norfolk Southern has selected four structural design consultant teams for the CREATE Project EW2.

On August 23^rd, the Chicago Region Environmental and Transportation Efficiency (CREATE) Program announced that Norfolk Southern selected four design teams for the CREATE Project EW2. The project includes the Belt Junction and 80^th Street Junction Replacements, totaling almost 100 structures in the project overall. 

Norfolk Southern will be overseeing the design work of most of the structures, and “the commencement of this work represents a major milestone for the CREATE 75^th Street Corridor Improvement Project (CREATE 75^thSt. CIP).” Back in July of 2020, Both Metra’s CREATE Project P2’s railroad flyover structure and Norfolk Southern’s part of the final engineering design began for the EW2 Project’s track. Later that year in September, Union Pacific’s part of the “EW2 Project’s track and structures” commenced.

Norfolk Southern’s Chief Engineer, Bridge & Structures, Ruth Brown, commented that the “CREATE Project EW2 is one of the nation’s most ambitious bridge replacement projects . . . Covering nearly 100 structures along a 6-mile stretch of some of the most congested railroads in North America, this is a major undertaking – one that will bridge the divide these structures represented to south side communities for decades as they have approached the end of their useful design life.”

Because the project is complex and requires very detailed designs, Norfolk Southern “awarded four design packages following a request for qualifications and a Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) networking event at Kennedy-King College, near the CREATE 75^th St. CIP on Chicago’s south side.” The four project awards are as follows (* denotes Mentor-Protégé discipline in which Prime Consultant will mentor DBE Subconsultant):

The first design package: 

Parsons, Prime Consultant DBE Team consists of:

• American Surveying & Engineering, Ltd. – topographic survey
• Czaplicki Lopez PLLC – structural design and structural inspection
• DB Sterlin Consultants Inc – permitting and utility design
• JLK Architects – historic preservation and Historic preservation architecture
• TranSmart, LLC – lighting design
• Wang Engineering Inc – geotechnical engineering

The second design package:

Hanson, Prime Consultant DBE Team consists of:

• 2IM Group LLC – drainage design
• Atlas Engineering Group Ltd – structural engineering*
• Claassen, White & Associates PC – survey
• DB Sterlin Consultants Inc – stakeholder coordination; drainage design
• OSEH Inc – maintenance of traffic design*
• Pinpoint Precision Engineering – utilities coordination and community engagement*
• Program Management & Control Services LLC – project controls*
• SE3 LLC – structural engineering*
• Site Design Group Ltd – landscape architecture and community engagement
• TranSmart, LLC – lighting design
• Wang Engineering Inc – geotechnical investigations

The third design package:

Parsons, Prime Consultant DBE Team consists of:

• American Surveying & Engineering, Ltd. – topographic survey
• Czaplicki Lopez PLLC – structural design and structural inspection
• DB Sterlin Consultants Inc – permitting and utility design
• TranSmart, LLC – lighting design
• Wang Engineering Inc – geotechnical engineering

The fourth design package:

Gannett Fleming, Prime Consultant DBE Team consist of:

• Infrastructure Engineering Inc – drainage & RR structure design*
• Pin Point Precision LLC – signing, striping, utilities, and community relations
• Sanchez & Associates PC – survey, LiDAR, and ROW verification
• TranSmart, LLC – lighting & traffic signal design
• Wang Engineering Inc – geotechnical borings, testing, and engineering

These four teams will engage with the final structure design with the community for the next two years. Each team has various education commitments that include hiring high school participants through Chicago Public Schools’ Career and Technical Education program to volunteering at Chicago Public Schools as guest speakers. There will also be more opportunities in the CREATE Progra for engineering, construction, and right-of-way acquisition. The press release tells DBE firms to register through the CREATE website, and that all program partner procurements will be sent via email. 

Norfolk Southern’s Director Supplier Inclusion & Sustainability, Valerie Nesbitt, stated that the partnership strengthens bonds between the communities and that it is “delivering on the promise to spread economic and educational opportunities throughout the community by deliberately awarding design packages across four consultant teams, adding new DBE team participation, expanding our prime consultant’s mentor-protégé programming for those DBE teams to develop new technical skill sets, and receiving robust commitments from the teams to extensively engage with students throughout neighboring schools.”