The Washington state Department of Transportation plans to seek new bids in early June on an estimated $27 million job to construct 3.7 miles of three-lane southbound freeway, including five concrete girder bridges, for its North Spokane Corridor project.

Acme Concrete Paving Inc., of Spokane, earlier had submitted a low bid of $21.6 million, 21 percent less than the department's estimate for the work, which will constitute the final project to complete the first 5.5 miles of drivable, fully divided freeway in the corridor. Now, however, due to possible ambiguity in the contract documents that DOT spokesman Al Gilson says led to contractors interpreting the requirements differently, all four bids received on the project at the end of April have been rejected.

The selected contractor will construct the southbound lanes between Francis Avenue and Farwell Road of what's known informally as the north-south freeway. Currently, both northbound and southbound traffic on the route is being carried on the leg that ultimately will serve as the northbound lanes.

The project is still expected to begin in July, and to be completed by late 2011, about the same time that another similar project, to connect the corridor from U.S. 2 to U.S. 395 near Wandermere Golf Course, also is expected to be completed.

The work under the contract to be let next month will include constructing the roadway, retaining walls, and traffic communications systems of the new freeway. It also will include constructing bridges at the freeway's intersections with Market Street and Lincoln, Gerlach, Fairview, and Parksmith roads.

The project is being funded through a federal grant program called Transportation Infrastructure Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER), and DOT spokesman Al Gilson says this is the first TIGER-funded project in the country to open bids. The grant award was for $35 million. Gilson says the funds would be used for the construction contract, as well as the project's sales tax, construction engineering, and contingencies.

Environmental studies for the corridor began in 1991 and were approved by the Federal Highway Administration in 1997, clearing the way for design and construction to begin, Gilson says. Construction started in 2001.

Including the TIGER grant, the department has so far committed $612.5 million in state and federal dollars to the project. Ultimately, a 10-mile-long, six-lane freeway link is to be created between U.S. 395, north of Spokane, and Interstate 90 near the Thor-Freya interchange.

So far, DOT has concentrated on construction at the north end of the corridor, completing all but two of the projects that have been launched so far, including a total of 18 bridges, realigning portions of Freya and Fairview roads, improving intersections at Market and Francis and at Freya and Francis, and constructing a concrete arch tunnel for the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway where its tracks intersect with the new freeway.