The State Highway 114/121 corridor, also known as the Dallas-Fort Worth Connector, is undergoing a supersize upgrade. The $1-billion project expands and redesigns two interchanges and portions of four highways in addition to building 39 bridges and more than 100 retaining walls. The 8.4-mile-long route runs through the cities of Southlake, Grapevine and Irving as well as the northern edge of the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. The Texas Dept. of Transportation design-build project is being built by NorthGate Constructors LLC—a 65%-35% joint venture led by Kiewit Texas Construction LP with Zachry Construction Corp. The lead design engineer is PB Americas, a unit of Parsons Brinckerhoff.
The winning team beat out Gateway Connector Constructors—a joint venture of Fluor Enterprises Inc. and Balfour Beatty Infrastructure Inc.—with a 60,000 man-hour proposal that includes 70 additional perks valued at $200 million. Construction sequencing, for instance, reduces the amount of temporary travel lanes for an $18-million savings, while the earthwork plan eliminates 150,000 truckloads of construction material from merging with local traffic.