Southeast of downtown Nashville, Tennessee, Superior Construction’s relocation of the Interstate 40/State Road 255 (I-40/SR 255) Interchange was recently accelerated by the Metropolitan Nashville Airport Authority (MNAA).
The airport authority has offered a $6 million incentive if Phase A of the project is completed by May 31, 2025, an entire year ahead of schedule.
The current interchange, a trumpet design with restricted turning movements that connects I-40 with Donelson Pike, cannot accommodate the progressively higher traffic demands of the Nashville International Airport (BNA).
The project, underway since 2022, updates the junction to a diverging diamond interchange (DDI) design. The opportunity for an airport-funded acceleration originated due to BNA’s acute need for immediate expansion.
The Donelson Interchange was a well-known safety hazard, and reconstruction will increase capacity, correct geometric deficiencies, and improve the overall operation. This will help to ensure efficient access to the airport, I-40, and other nearby businesses.
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“This project is extremely important to the airport because it relocates Donelson Pike to the east, allowing for further expansion with parking,” said Timothy Bea, Donelson Pike Project Manager, Superior Construction. “Redoing their terminal loop road pushes it further out and allows more parking and storage so more people can come in and out of the airport. Expanding will allow them to handle all of the growth that they're seeing at the airport.”
The MNAA will pay American family-owned infrastructure contractor Superior Construction an acceleration cost of $300,000 per month to a maximum of $3 million to speed up 10 months of the project. The contractor will then have an additional opportunity to earn $62,500 a day to accelerate the project even further, for a maximum payment of $6 million.
Completing the project ahead of schedule will improve the safety of the interchange and surrounding routes and will allow the airport to start the next phase of its expansion project.
Nashville has been consistently listed as one of the country’s fastest-growing cities and shows no signs of slowing down in the long run. This year, its metropolitan region was named one of the fastest-growing areas in the country. According to a report from Exploding Topics, Nashville ranked 10th in the country, just behind metro areas in Texas, Arizona, and Florida.
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Last year, the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce stated that the Nashville Metropolitan Statistical Area increased by approximately 86 people a day, and said that the rise in population occurred through natural population changes as well as more people relocating from other parts of the country.
The Donelson Interchange was originally built in the 1980s to provide access to a then-new terminal at BNA, and it sits on the MNAA’s right of way. The expansion of BNA and subsequent growth in the surrounding area led to unprecedented traveler-related traffic and a larger volume of cargo that has overwhelmed the current configuration.
“The airport basically said to the Tennessee Department of Transportation [TDOT], ‘Hey, we need to expand. You need to move your road,’” said Jeff Anderson, Division Manager, Superior Construction.
The 1-mile terminal loop road is in the works to become a 2-mile loop, allowing for more storage and capacity. Drivers will soon maneuver through the new DDI design, as well as a newly constructed State Route 255.
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Getting onto I-40 eastbound has only recently become safer due to the team’s reconfiguration of the intersection, thanks to the addition of a temporary traffic light.
“In its original condition, drivers had to cross traffic, and Donelson was coming up around the corner and you had to turn,” Anderson said. “I make that movement every night to go home, and it was a little on the hairy side the whole time.”
To meet the new aggressive timeline, Superior Construction had a night shift for several months, added equipment and personnel, and worked longer hours. They recently dissolved the night shift and put everyone back on days.
“There’s a lot of work going on, which probably goes without saying,” Anderson said. “We have two to three subcontractors that need to be in the same piece of real estate at the same time, and it is a large coordination effort as you can imagine.”
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Contractors have included main drilling and blasting contractor Stansell Electric, Vulcan Paving, and Mar Cor, which provide their flat, curb, and gutter work. Superior Construction also mentions a good partnership with Thompson Engineering (the TDOT representative) and works hand in hand with them.
“We also have a good drilling and blasting subcontractor,” said Robert Ray, Senior Superintendent, Superior Construction. “Seventy-five percent of this material had to be blasted to be removed. There's a lot of rock.”
According to Ray, almost every day for two years, rolling roadblocks were conducted on I-40 in both directions with the help of the Tennessee Highway Patrol to minimize the risk to the motoring public. At times when blasting is in the proximity of the airport, they will coordinate with the air traffic controllers as well.
“If we're in the proximity, we will also work with the airport tower because we are in the path of one of the runways,” Ray said. “There are some challenges with crane restrictions and some blasting restrictions. Especially during peak hours, the coordination with the airport's a big part of the project for sure.”
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The complex project has many different work sites simultaneously under construction. Currently, the team is constructing three bridges: one north of I-40 that will serve as the new westbound off-ramp; the main bridge crossing over I-40, part of the diverging diamond intersection; and lastly a bridge to the south, which will be the new way that drivers exit off the Donelson Interchange to get into the airport. The westbound ramp is 95 percent complete.
The team has also installed 4 miles of pipe, moved over 1 million yards of material, and completed several of the initial phases, including allowing the airport to start their first phase of its expansion with the installation of a tunnel.
“One retaining wall has been completed, and two are under construction now,” Ray said. “We are hoping to have all this complete here in the fall.”
The project also contains seven streams and two wetlands. Ensuring all the construction efforts stay in compliance is challenging.
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“This job has a really elaborate Erosion Prevention & Sediment Control Plan. TDOT has actually said it's probably one of the tougher ones that they've ever seen and put together,” Ray said.
The phasing of the project is also elaborate. The team has six different phases to work their way through to completion, and they are striving to complete Phase 3A by mid-to-late spring next year.
“It’s a little convoluted, but we're basically at different phases, and different parts of the project,” Bea said. “But for the most part, there’s phase one (1A and 1B), two (2A and 2B), and three (3A and 3B). We are in various spots in phases 2A and 2B right now.”
Phases 2A and 2B are the “traffic phases” the team is currently working on. They will soon open up bridge three (over McCrory Creek) and also change the westbound I-40 exit from where it currently is to run over one of the new bridges. Traffic will be moving into Phase 2A for that portion of the project.
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To execute a project as complex as this one, Superior Construction finds that being organized and coordinated with all parties is an important and crucial task. They send out daily work schedules of the next day’s work to TDOT and also conduct Microsoft Teams calls so everyone can participate. Superior’s leadership then follows up with a personal phone call with the airport.
“We review it as a group,” Bea said. “We have a one o'clock meeting every day, and we review what we're going to do for the next day for a quick 30 minutes. And then one of our engineers fires that schedule out to TDOT and its representatives, so that they can kind of keep a pulse on what we have going on.”
“We've been learning to have patience,” Bea added. “There's a lot going on. You cannot over communicate, that's for sure.”
Superior Construction is striving to complete Phase 3A by late spring next year, opening up more work for the airport in their next contracts to be released, and creating new alignment for traffic.
