The winning consortium comprising of Doprastav and MCE Voest Linz will start building the fifth Bratislava bridge over the Danube on February 1. Kosicka Bridge should be ready for use on May 31, 2005, which is an eight to nine months delay from the original plan, Ivan Sestak, chairman of the board of directors in Doprastav told a press conference on Thursday.
Doprastav director general Dusan Mraz specified that bridge construction will not have any major impacts on city traffic. Shipping on the Danube will be halted for about 48 hours in September or October of 2004.
State experts set a ceiling price in June 2000 that the bridge contractor cannot exceed and the consortium’s bid at SKK 2.253 billion almost approached that limit. Profit rate is calculated at 3-5 percent.
Representatives of Metro Bratislava, a.s., and the main contractor, comprising of Slovak company Doprastav and Austrian company Vatech Voest MCE GmbH & Co signed a contract to build the fifth bridge over the Danube River in Bratislava, Kosicka Bridge on December 16, 2002.
The project is jointly financed from the state budget and loans from EIB and Slovak commercial banks. The project is considered to be vital for the development of Bratislava by linking the southern Petrzalka to Bratislava on the northern bank of the Danube. Together with improvements to the city center road network, the project is expected to significantly improve traffic flow to relieve congestion in the city center.