Southwest Concrete Paving Company (SWCP) is in the midst of reconstructing 3.82 miles of eight-lane Interstate 10 in Pima County, Arizona, running through the City of Tucson, the Town of Marana, and an unincorporated section of Pima County. Project work began in November 2022, with paving starting in November 2023. Targeted project completion is June 2025.

With base and dowel bars in place, a water truck cools the configuration under the hot Sonoran Desert sun

The scope of work includes reconstructing 30.56 lane miles of pavement with four general purpose lanes in each direction. Along with new Portland cement concrete pavement (PCCP), asphaltic concrete pavement, drainage facilities, and mechanically stabilized earth walls, new bridge construction is underway.

One of SWCP’s transport dump trucks unloads a fresh batch of concrete from the nearby plant.

The concrete pavement work on this project has been divided into three phases, per the project MOT, and encompasses new full-depth roadway sections on mainline I-10, ramp and frontage road work, and the cross street at Orange Grove and Sunset Road. The paving sections feature 13”-dowelled and undowelled pavement, along with 11”- and 10”-pavement.

All of the work on the mainline is currently completed, except for final tie-in to the bridges on the project that are not yet complete. The paving portion of the project currently stands at 70% complete.

The Gomaco GP 2600 handled the two-track work while the Wirtgen SP941 did the four-track paving.

SWCP has placed all of the concrete with slipform paving, using a Wirtgen SP941 four-track paver and a Gomaco GP 2600 two-track paver for the project. During the primary stages of the mainline work, both pavers were used, each for a different lane width, eliminating the need for resizing, and keeping the project moving in an efficient and expedited fashion. After the work on the primary mainline section was complete, the SP941 continued on as the sole paver in the project.

The Wirtgen SP941 in action

Southwest erected a central mix plant for the project concrete in the Santa Cruz River bottom at the CalPortland facility on Orange Grove Road. This facility produced all of the concrete aggregates for the project, save for the #4 aggregates for the non-dowelled concrete that was mixed on the mainline. Those aggregates came from a nearby source off Pinal Air Park Road. CalPortland also supplied cement from its Rillito plant located just a few miles north of the project.

The batch plant location provided quick and easy delivery of the concrete to the project site, seen in the far left portion of the photo.

In October, Phase 2 of the concrete paving work is scheduled to begin. That work encompasses the remaining ramps, along with the frontage roads. Finally, Phase 3 will tie the local streets into the new alignment, with that work anticipated to begin in early 2025.

The SWCP Project Team includes Project Manager Lolo Sanchez, Paving Manager Luis Sandoval, Paving Superintendent Eduardo Sandoval, Prep Superintendent Andrew Contreras, Finishing Foreman Joaquin Moreno, Batch Plant Manager Ivan McKinney, Batch Plant Operator Joaquin Carillo, Quality Control Manager Sean Elliot.