The Port of Coeymans is preparing to assemble hundreds of enormous steel girders that will connect the columns and support the new crossing’s road deck.
As support columns for the New NY Bridge rise across the Hudson River, workers at an upstate facility are hard at work preparing critical elements for the project’s next stage of construction. A few miles south of Albany, a major Tappan Zee Constructors, LLC (TZC) staging yard at the Port of Coeymans (pronounced KWEE-mans) will be the assembly site for hundreds of enormous steel girders that will connect the columns and support the new crossing’s road deck.
“We are extremely proud of our partnership with TZC and are fortunate to provide further job opportunities for the local community and region,” said Carver Laraway, president and owner of Carver Companies. “We are honored to have a role in the construction of this landmark structure that will serve motorists for years to come.”
The facility in the town of Coeymans – named for Dutch settlers who came to the area in the 1600s – provides a number of important benefits to TZC, starting with its immense size. The ample waterfront is an ideal location with the space to accommodate the assembly and handling of the new bridge’s girders.
To prepare the facility for the special needs of the New NY Bridge project, TZC worked with the port’s owners to install a number of temporary facilities, including new slips to receive very large transportation barges and customized hydraulic rail carts to help move the girder assemblies within the port. TZC is also utilizing up to eight on-site cranes to put together the massive construction components.
The 12-foot tall girders begin as steel plate sections and are delivered to fabrication shops in Virginia, North Carolina and Pennsylvania, which are producing a total of 100,000 tons of welded steel beams in lengths ranging from 60 to 120 feet. After the beams are shipped by barge and truck to the Port of Coeymans, TZC crew members offload, organize and store them on the 16-acre landside section of the port.
Next, the beams are assembled with high-strength bolts into girders that range in length from 290 to 410 feet and weigh as much as 600 tons each. Assembling the girders on land in a controlled environment helps the project team maintain a high degree of safety, quality and efficiency.
Later this year, the assembled girders will begin to be barged to the new bridge’s location, a journey of about 20 hours. Once they arrive at the project site, many of the girders, particularly those destined for locations farther from shore, will be set in place by the project’s I Lift NY super crane. Piece by piece, the massive steel members will connect the support columns and form the framework for the future road deck.
In addition to the new bridge’s girders, the Port of Coeymans is supporting the staging and transportation of other critical materials, including the new bridge’s bearings, precast deck panels, and electrical and mechanical systems.
The work being carried out for the project at the Port of Coeymans is employing more than 100 New Yorkers, another demonstration of how the New NY Bridge is an economic engine for the Empire State.
Learn more about how materials are transported to the project site.
