Project management firms have given bid presentations to Qatar’s Public Works Authority (Ashghal) for the management contract to build the Doha Bay Crossing in Qatar.

Firms responded to a request for proposals for the management contract for the crossing in late February, and Ashghal, the client for the scheme, invited selected firms to present submissions in late March as it evaluates proposals.

“The client has received presentations from bidders and is shortlisting companies,” says a source in Doha.

The Doha Bay Crossing will connect the Lusail development, West Bay and the New Doha International Airport, which is scheduled to open later in 2012, through a mixture of both tunnels and bridges.

Each bridge section will be connected to an immersed tunnel of eight kilometres in length. The crossing will consist of an expressway with six lanes in total, with three lanes in each direction.

Spanish architecture firm Santiago Calatrava was awarded the contract to do the concept design for the causeway last year. The Spanish firm was selected by Qatar’s Ministry of Municipality and Urban Planning after the ministry had invited international companies to submit designs. The project has now been passed to Ashghal to oversee the construction of the scheme.

The Doha Bay project was originally planned as a subsea tunnel that would run under the bay of Doha and link the New Doha International airport (NDIA) with Lusail. The original feasibility study was completed by Denmark’s Cowi, which recommended the project go ahead as a 12-kilometre tunnel. But in June 2010, the Urban Planning Ministry said the project might proceed as a bridge. Qatar has now decided to move forward with the scheme as a mixture of tunnels and bridges.