Infra Insight Blog

The Texas Transportation Commission selected the apparent best value proposer for the design, construction and long-term capital maintenance of the Grand Parkway project, a 37-mile, greenfield toll road in Houston. The high-priority project awarded on Thursday consists of Segments F-1, F-2 and G of the Grand Parkway, part of a proposed 184-mile highway, encircling the Houston area. A few of the other, smaller segments of the Grand Parkway are being developed using traditional construction contracts. Segments D and E are currently under construction and Segment I-2 is already open to traffic.

Four short-listed proposers submitted technical proposals on August 15 and price proposals on August 22.

• FBW, a consortium comprised of Fluor, Balfour Beatty Infrastructure and Williams Brothers;
• Kiewit-Granite Parkway Constructors, a joint venture between Kiewit Texas Construction, Granite Construction Co. and Texas Sterling;
• Spring Creek Constructors, a joint venture between J.D. Abrams, FCC Construccion, The Lane Construction Company and Shikun & Binui; and
• Zachry-Odebrecht Parkway Builders, a joint venture comprised of Zachry Construction Corporation and Odebrecht Construction Inc.

Zachry-Odebrecht Parkway Builders was determined to be the apparent best value proposer and conditionally awarded the design-build and capital maintenance agreements. The best value selection criteria included price, technical and schedule scores. According to the RFP, TxDOT's construction cost estimate exclusive of design was $1.160 billion. Zachry-Odebrecht's proposed design and construction price is $1,007,053,000, resulting in significant cost savings. In addition, Zachry-Odebrecht proposed the fastest schedule with completion approximately 7 months earlier than the outside deadline set by TxDOT.

The award to Zachry-Odebrecht is conditioned upon successful completion of negotiations and finalization of the agreements, as well as compliance with various legislative conditions to execution of the agreements. Commercial close is anticipated to occur at the end of the year.