Virginia DOT on Dec. 15 issued a request for qualifications for design-build delivery of the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel (HRBT) expansion, the region’s highest priority project, and VDOT’s biggest—estimated at up to $3.8 billion, based on VDOT’s planning-level design.

Two teams, Jacobs/Moffat & Nichol, and Parsons, are competing to represent VDOT as owner’s engineer. A selection is expected in February. Design-build RFQ responses are due Mar. 2, 2018. Shortlisted firms will be issued an RFP in April, 2018, and will submit technical and fixed-price proposals a year later.

Key challenges are scope creep and the complexity of staging construction over one of the busiest shipping channels in the U.S. The naturally deep channel provides access to the Atlantic Ocean for the Navy’s Naval Station Norfolk, the largest Navy base in the U.S., which managed 3,100 ship movements last year.