WILLIAMSPORT—A steel fabricator in Lycoming County has played a pivotal role in a massive New York City bridge project.
High Steel Structures LLC, one of the largest fabricators of structural steel in North America announced Friday that it has completed fabrication of its part of the $3.98 billion New NY Bridge Project.
The New NY Bridge Project, the largest transportation infrastructure design-build project in the U.S., is building a replacement of the Governor Mario M. Cuomo Bridge (formerly the Tappan Zee Bridge) over the Hudson River in New York.
“With fabrication complete, we are proud to say that we have hit every engineering and delivery milestone with outstanding quality,” said Jeffrey L. Sterner, President and COO of High Industries Inc.
To support the project, High Steel completed an $11.4 million, 30,000-square-foot expansion of its Williamsport facility, installed new state-of-the-art equipment to improve efficiency, and added approximately 200 jobs.
The expansion was supported by a $430,000 grant awarded by Governor Tom Wolf and the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development, and was contingent upon High Steel’s winning the contract to fabricate the bridge.
About the New NY Bridge Project
- High Steel Structures has fabricated more than 50,000 tons of structural steel for the approach spans of the iconic $3.98 billion structure north of New York City.
- The New NY Bridge Project is America’s largest design-build transportation infrastructure project.
- Steel plate and shapes to fabricate the project were sourced from US steel mills.
- This project represents the single largest steel fabrication order High Steel has produced since its founding in 1931.
- High Steel was awarded the project in late 2013 and began shop drawing production. In 2014, fabrication began across all four of the company’s fabrication plants in Lancaster and Williamsport with the bulk of the tonnage produced in Williamsport.
- High Steel fabricated more than 32,000 individual pieces in total weighing more than 50,000 tons.
- The massive girders used on the New NY Bridge are 12’ deep and weigh as much as 120 tons or more.
- Lined up, end-to-end, the girders fabricated by High Steel would go 13.7 miles, or 72,469.5 feet of girder.
- High Steel precision-drilled 1,418,968 holes to allow each piece to be safely fit together and secured in place.
- If laid end to end, all the welds High Steel applied to the steel for the New NY Bridge Project would stretch more than 200 miles from High’s plant in Williamsport, Pa. to the site of the bridge in Tarrytown, N.Y.
- With fabrication now complete, every engineering and delivery milestone has been met with outstanding quality, on time, and on budget.
- High Transit shipped more than 1,100 loads for the project, 297 of which were “Superloads” that required police escorts, weighing more than 130 tons and nearly half a football field in length.
