Work on a bridge in Liepe, Germany, has been completed. Budimex won the contract for the demolition of the old crossing and the construction of the new structure, including equipment and approaches, at the end of 2021. The steel main girder of the bridge was manufactured in Szczecin and transported from the shipyard to Liepe by water. Budimex SA is the general contractor for the project. The construction was carried out in cooperation with Budimex Bau, a subsidiary that can boast further successes on the German market.
Liepe is located close to the Polish border in the state of Brandenburg. It is home to one of the largest ship lifts in Europe. The town itself is located on the Oder-Havel Canal, an important transport route connecting the Oder River with the waterway network in Germany. The investment sentence in question involved the demolition of the old bridge structure and the construction of a new crossing, as well as the appropriate profiling and strengthening of the canal banks.
Weighing a total of 230 tonnes, the main steel girder of the bridge was made in Szczecin from 7 individual segments and as a single element was transported to Liepe by water and mounted on pre-built abutments.
The geometry of the bridge being built by Budimex has made it possible to remove the pillars of the previous bridge structure, which were a navigational obstacle to navigation. In addition, one of Brandenburg’s most important cycle paths, the Tour Brandenburg, crosses the bridge in Liepe.
– We are pleased to have successfully completed another construction contract in Germany carried out by our company. The construction process posed some challenges, mainly due to protected areas and the transportation of the main structure of the facility transported by water, i.e. the Odra River and its canals. We also had limited time for logistics in order not to block the shipping channel,’ says Jacek Zwiech, President of the Management Board, Budimex Bau.
The tender for the demolition of the old bridge and the construction of the new bridge – worth €5.1 million gross – was won by Poland’s largest construction company at the end of 2021. Budimex SA carried out this investment with the participation of the Group’s subsidiary, Budimex Bau GmbH.
One of the elements of Budimex’s development is to go beyond Poland and expand into European markets. On the German market, Budimex SA operates together with its subsidiary Budimex Bau GmbH in the area of infrastructure construction as well as cubic and industrial construction. Budimex Bau can boast of winning further tenders and realisations in these areas. Budimex Bau has already completed a project for the replacement of a bridge in Wittstock for Die Autobahn GmbH, and is currently in the process of completing, among others, the reconstruction of a bridge in Oderberg, as well as the reconstruction of a motorway link including a steel structure in Delmenhorst. It is also running a project for the construction of an animal crossing over the A2 motorway in Wollin, Germany. Budimex is also present in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Latvia.
