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Contractor and designer were selected to undertake construction of a 20-mile section of I-70 that runs from U.S. Route 63 in Columbia to U.S. Route 54 in Kingdom City.

The team beat out one competitor — Emery Sapp & Sons and Capital Paving and Construction — for the $405 million contract.

“This really is kind of a big deal,” said Millstone Weber Chairman and CEO Thomas Kuhn. “We’ve been talking about 70 forever. And forever starts today.”

These kinds of projects “get kind of messy,” Kuhn warned half-jokingly. “We just beg everyone’s forgiveness for now. It’s going to be really nice at the end.”

The Columbia-Kingdom City stretch is the first of six projects that comprise the makeover of nearly 200 miles of highway from Wentzville to Blue Springs, outside of Kansas City.

MoDOT officials anticipate construction for six total lanes of new pavement could start this summer and run through December 2027. And four lanes will be open to traffic during the construction period.

Eric Kopinski, MoDOT’s I-70 program director, said the stretch was chosen to kick off the series of highway construction projects because it is “the most shovel-ready.” Some preliminary work on the U.S. 63 and 54 interchanges is already complete and the expanse between is “relatively rural,” he said.

“If we had one of these projects that we can move quickly on, this was the one,” Kopsinski said.

The second project in the queue is an 18-mile stretch from Warrenton to Wentzville.

A request for proposals for the Warrenton-Wentzville project could be issued as early as late 2024, said MoDOT Director Patrick McKenna, and a contract award could be announced next year.

The current project cost estimate is between $400 million and $550 million, Kopinski said.

“I just want to congratulate and thank MoDOT and everyone that had any involvement in this,” said Francis Slay, a former ӣ����Ƶ mayor and newly appointed member of the Missouri Highways and Transportation Commission. “This is very impressive and very exciting for the state of Missouri.”

“I appreciate the trust that the General Assembly and the governor have put into the Department of Transportation,” said former state Sen. Dan Hegeman, R-St. Joseph, who was appointed to the commission along with Slay. “I hope we’ve begun living up to that trust today.”

Last year state lawmakers signed off on the $2.8 billion plan to rebuild the interstate, though it happened against the backdrop of outright conflict between the Legislature and transportation department.

MoDOT in 2021 filed a lawsuit arguing it has the authority to grant department employees pay raises without approval by the Legislature, an anomaly in Missouri state government. Employee pay rates are typically subject to legislative budget negotiations and governor approval.

The lawsuit is still .

MoDOT last year and the year before also faced calls by some lawmakers to impose greater legislative oversight on the department’s spending and project plans.

That push continues this year in the House Transportation Accountability committee, where committee chair and vocal MoDOT critic Rep. Don Mayhew, R-Crocker, has entertained proposals to disband the transportation commission and give the Legislature oversight of the department’s construction project schedule.

At a news conference Wednesday, Missouri Highways and Transportation Commission Chair Terry Ecker said he didn’t think calls to adjust MoDOT’s structure would go anywhere or disrupt I-70 project plans.

“Spending time across the street talking to elected officials,” Ecker said, “I just don’t foresee that happening. So I don’t know that we spend much time worrying about it.”