The S.C. Department of Transportation has picked Ames Construction to rebuild the Interstate 526 interchange at Long Point Road in Mount Pleasant, the only road access point for SC Ports’ Wando Welch Terminal.
SCDOT notified Ames of the award June 22, based on a $227,033,765 cost proposal the company submitted May 29, according to the agency’s award letter. Ames will both design and build the project. On Aug. 3, engineering firm Parsons Corp. said it would serve as lead designer on Ames’ team, with its share of the work worth about 10% of the contract.
The plan gives port trucks their own way on and off the interstate. A new I-526 off-ramp and on-ramp system for the terminal is to be built just west of Long Point Road, and trucks headed for North Charleston would take a flyover that merges with the interstate, The Post and Courier reported in 2024.
SCDOT estimates the share of trucks on Long Point Road would fall from 70% to 15%, and that traffic on the new ramps would be 90% trucks, according to the project website.
The interchange overhaul was put at $325 million in 2024, when the federal government approved a $195 million grant for it, The Post and Courier reported. The state said it would match the grant with $65 million in other federal money and $65 million from gas tax collections, according to the newspaper.
“As South Carolina continues to experience significant population and economic growth, strategic transportation investments are essential to supporting communities and commerce,” Mark Fialkowski, president of Infrastructure North America for Parsons, said in the company’s announcement.
The Daniel Island News reported in January 2025 that construction was expected to start in summer 2026. SCDOT’s project website now says construction is expected to begin in 2027 and take about three and a half years. The executed contract, which SCDOT posted Aug. 7, requires Ames to substantially complete the project by Aug. 31, 2030.
The interchange grew out of SCDOT’s 2022 study of I-526 between Virginia Avenue in North Charleston and U.S. 17 in Mount Pleasant. A separate, larger widening of I-526 from Virginia Avenue to Paul Cantrell Boulevard in West Ashley is expected to be built from 2029 to 2039, according to SCDOT’s project website.
