The Mobile River Bridge and Bayway project will receive $550 million from the federal government, according to Gov. Kay Ivey’s office.
The office announced Friday the money would come as a discretionary grant from the Bridge Investment Program, created by the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, passed by Congress and signed by President Joe Biden that November.
“This federal funding will be a game-changer, not just for Mobile and Baldwin Counties, but for our entire state and region,” Ivey said in the news release. “This is exactly how our infrastructure dollars should be spent, and I thank the federal government for their recognition of and support for this critical project.”
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The project involves constructing a cable stay bridge over the Mobile River and making improvements to Broad and Virginia Streets in Mobile and the West Tunnel. The money will also go toward replacing the current Bayway, about 50 years old.
The construction project relies mostly on financing, with $1.2 billion coming from the sale of bonds and another $1.1 billion from federal loans using the Transportation Infrastructure Financing and Innovation Act (TIFIA).
So far the project has $125 million from a grant back in 2019 from the former U.S. Sen. Richard Shelby’s office, and another $250 million from the state.