Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission plans two construction projects in Lower Makefield – Bucks County Courier Times

Not one, but two construction projects are expected to be up and going by early 2018 in the area around the Interstate-95 interchange at Taylorsville Road in Lower Makefield.

Both projects will be financed by the Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission.

The first is the previously announced construction of a new, dual-span $430 million Scudder Falls Bridge, which carries I-95 over the Delaware River into Ewing, New Jersey. The project, which also includes improvements to adjacent roadways, is expected to begin this spring and be completed at some point in 2021. The 56-year-old current Scudder Falls Bridge, which serves about 59,000 vehicles a day, will remain in use until the first of the new dual replacement spans is finished and open to traffic in 2019, DRJTBC spokesman Joseph Donnelly said.

The second project in the Taylorsville Road/I-95 area, which will begin in early 2018, will be the construction of a new office building that will serve as the transportation agency's administrative headquarters.

The commission plans to build the approximate 25,000-square-foot building on a 10-acre tract off Woodside and Taylorsville roads that it bought from Lower Makefield last year for $800,000.

The commission hired USA Architects, Planners & Interior Designers during its regular monthly meeting on Monday to provide architectural, engineering, landscape architecture and interior design consulting, as well as preliminary, final and post design services on the new one- or two-story building. The headquarters is expected "to include energy-efficient features such as daylighting, sustainable materials and systems, and other life-cycle cost features," Donnelly said.

The Easton-based architectural firm was hired at a cost not to exceed $1,376,451 to provide the design services, agency representatives said.

The new facility, expected to be completed in mid-2019, will replace the commissions current headquarters off Route 1 in Morrisville.

"Our Morrisville building is 65 years old and has serious space and operational issues," DRJTBC Executive Director Joseph J. Resta said in a statement. "It has reached the end of its functional life."

Once the new headquarters is completed, the old DRJTBC facility will be converted into a regional maintenance hub by the agency that oversees seven toll bridges and 13 toll-supported bridges along the Delaware River from Bucks County north to the New Jersey/New York border.

The agency, in its land acquisition from Lower Makefield, assumed ownership of the park-and-ride lot on the parcel near the I-95 interchange. The DRJTBC plans to reduce the parking spaces in the under-utilized area from the current 170 to 103 while constructing the new administration building on a portion of the tract.

The commission also plans, as part of the construction project, to build a connector path to link the park-and-ride lot with the nearby Delaware Canal towpath and an access ramp to the pedestrian/bicycle walkway that is part of the bridge replacement project, the spokesman said.

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Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission plans two construction projects in Lower Makefield - Bucks County Courier Times