Alamo NEX Construction—a consortium led by Ferrovial US subsidiaries Ferrovial Construction U.S. and Webber LLC—was awarded a design-build contract for the Texas Dept. of Transportation’s $1.5-billion Interstate 35 Northeast Expansion project, located on the north side of San Antonio.

Alamo NEX and TxDOT are negotiating final terms, and contract execution is expected in June. Construction is scheduled to begin in 2022 and will take about six years to complete.

“I-35 serves as a main artery for travel and international commerce in Texas, in addition to the project itself bringing jobs and economic opportunities to Texans over the next six years and beyond,” said Jose Carlos Esteban, president and CEO of Webber, in a statement.

Work will pass through the cities of San Antonio, Live Oak, Selma and Schertz, in Bexar and Guadalupe counties. Improvements to I-35 will include elevated managed lanes between the existing main lanes and frontage roads, four additional connector bridges at the I-35/I-410 North interchange, one two-lane direct connector bridge in one direction and three two-lane transitioning to one-lane direct connector bridges in three directions at the I-35/Loop 1604 interchange, as well as reconstruction and/or widening of the Loop 1604 general purpose lanes and bridges from Nacogdoches Road to east of Biltmore Lakes.

According to Alamo NEX, these structures represent approximately 55% of the project budget with more than 800 spans of bridge construction, 4,500 concrete beams, 31 million pounds of steel girders and 6 million sq ft of bridge decks.

The Alamo NEX Construction team includes Ferrovial Construction U.S. and Webber as equity members, with other participants including T.Y. Lin International, CONSOR Engineers LLC, OTHON Inc., PaveTex Engineering LLC, CSJ Engineering Associates LLC and Terracon Consultants Inc.

Since 2010, Ferrovial says it has awarded more than $700 million to over 450 disadvantaged business enterprise (DBE) firms in Texas, and Alamo NEX plans to continue that practice on the I-35 project.

“Our goal is to exceed the diversity goals set forth in the contracts with our clients for all our projects, which provides opportunity and growth in the communities where we live and work,” said Angel Luis Sanchez, CEO of Ferrovial Construction U.S., in a statement. The firm is a unit of the Spain-based contractor.

This project is the latest in a series of major design-build projects that Ferrovial Construction U.S. and Webber have partnered on across Texas, which represent more than $6 billion in construction value. These include the $2.1 billion I-635 LBJ Express, $1.5 billion North Tarrant Express Segments 1&2 and $1.3B I-35W Segment 3A, which all were completed ahead of schedule, and the $900 million SH 99 Grand Parkway Segments H & I, scheduled to finish in 2022. 

The I-35 project award comes on the heels of another successful pursuit by Ferrovial of a design-build joint-venture contract in Georgia. Last month, the Georgia Dept. of Transportation awarded a $229-million contract to a joint venture of Ferrovial subsidiary Webber LLC and United Infrastructure Group to rebuild the Interstate 16/I-75 interchange in Macon, Ga.