Fluor provided accelerated fast-track design and construction services for a 28.5-mile controlled-access highway in Horry County, northeast of Conway, South Carolina.

Conway Bypass is the first design-build project of South Carolina's Partners-in-Progress program designed to accelerate the completion of five significant projects within the state.

The project was the South Carolina Department of Transportation's (SCDOT) first public-private partnership (PPP) and the state's largest design-build project.

The Fluor team's dedicated effort allowed the project to achieve 2.6 million effort hours without a single lost-time accident, a record that ranks this project as one of the safest major transportation projects in the United States.

Despite three disruptive hurricanes and a number of sensitive environmental issues, requiring special construction methods, the 28.5-mile project was delivered seven months ahead of schedule and millions of dollars under budget.

Fluor served as the design-build project manager on the State of South Carolina's first PPP project. We were responsible for providing a fast-track approach to construct the highway while working closely with state and local officials, businesses and residents of the area. The Conway Bypass comprised more than 60 bridges and six interchanges constructed through more than 300 acres of wetlands.

We coordinated the design effort and provided permitting, land acquisition and construction management services. Fluor's team maintained the project schedule, managed multiple contractors, managed the quality assurance/quality control (QA/QC) program, traffic control, utility relocation, community relations, safety and worked with the disadvantaged business enterprise (DBE) program.

Fluor implemented several innovative approaches during the project that saved money and reduced the overall schedule. Our project team initiated a value-engineering program that over the course of the project resulted in a reduction of $50 million in total project cost.

We worked closely with state and federal agencies to reclassify certain areas as minimally productive wetlands, thereby eliminating approximately five miles of bridges, which reduced the total project cost. Other innovations included use of partnering sessions with SCDOT, geo-grid materials to reduce excavations, Grade Positioning System (GPS) for grading control, use of precast, post-tensioned flat slap bridges, superpave asphalt and a paperless project concept.

Environmental sensitivities were addressed through innovative construction methods. The project team supported and worked closely with Clemson University's monitoring of black bear migrations through the region. Mindful of the region's delicate surroundings, we used a “top down” construction approach for building more than 60 mainline bridges spanning wetlands, a railway and the Waccamaw River. Here, the bridges were constructed using cranes supported by a temporary trestle positioned between the east and westbound bridges, minimizing the impact to the environment below.