Acme Concrete Paving Inc., of Spokane, has been awarded a $7.8 million contract to resurface an about 5-mile stretch of Interstate 90 just west of downtown.

The project will replace damaged and cracked concrete panels on both the eastbound and westbound lanes of the freeway from the Maple Street interchange to about a mile west of the Geiger Boulevard interchange.

The project includes repairs on the Latah Valley Bridge and the Sunset Hill. Some of the salvageable stretches of concrete will be ground down to remove the deep ruts in the traffic lanes, says Al Gilson, a Spokane-based spokesman for the Washington state Department of Transportation.

Work will begin as early as possible next spring, weather permitting, and is expected to be complete sometime in the spring of 2012, Gilson says, adding that the project will take two construction seasons to complete, with work stopping next winter and resuming again in spring 2012.

The project is to be paid for with federal funds, he says.

The stretch of road that's being repaired was last improved in the early 1990s, he says, and the concrete was poured thick enough then that it could later be ground down to smooth out the surface, if needed.

In areas where the 12-by-12-foot concrete panels are too damaged to be resurfaced, Acme will replace them, while other segments of the road will be ground down about an inch deep with a diamond grinder to remove the ruts, he says.

Gilson says traffic will at times be rerouted and there will be some lane closures during the construction, and the DOT is still working on traffic re-configurations for the project.

The most recent similar repair work on I-90 took place last year, from Division Street to Havana Street. Before that, the DOT made repairs to the I-90 viaduct going through downtown, from Maple to Division streets, Gilson says.

He says the freeway has to be resurfaced and repaired more often than the DOT would like, due to damage from studded tires.