Best Projects | Winners
Best Project, Highway/Bridge SH 99 Grand Parkway Segments H & I
Photo courtesy of Grand Parkway Infrastructure
SH 99 Grand Parkway Segments H & I
Houston
BEST PROJECT
Owner: Texas Dept. of Transportation
Lead Design Firm: Ferrovial Construction
GC: Grand Parkway Infrastructure
Civil: Othon, Bowman, 14101975 (Subsidiary of Urban Systems)
The scale and scope of the 37.5-mile Segment H and I project presented the joint venture of Ferrovial, Granite Construction and Webber with large-scale challenges. The $938-million project—located in the eastern part of the SH 99 project around the city of Houston—required extensive right-of-way acquisition early in the design phase. Aggressive and selective purchasing was executed to acquire land in time for construction to begin on schedule in October 2017.
The scope for the project included two new two-lane toll facilities, work on 70 main lane bridges, two frontage roads, two ramp bridges, seven turnarounds, discontinuous frontage roads, toll booths and ramps. The 8.7-mile Segment I-2 included construction and installation of tolling equipment upgrades and improvements to an existing four-lane facility.
The project traversed Chambers, Harris, Liberty and Montgomery counties and presented significant utility conflicts, including some with intercontinental pipelines. Through extensive planning, the design team mitigated interferences with nearly 700 different utility lines early in the project, resulting in the elimination of almost half the project’s utility conflicts. Some bridges were designed and constructed to span utility corridors that were too cumbersome or costly to relocate by utility owners.
Located in southeast Texas, wet weather consistently challenged the project team to coordinate work and adjust the schedule to complete work quickly and safely.
As a project that logged more than 5.5 million work hours over 4.5 years, hiring and staffing an efficient and adequate labor force presented an ongoing challenge. The three joint venture partners combined labor forces as well as resources from other project partners to supplement areas that required additional crews.
For Segment 3 of the project, finding sufficient borrow sources that met specifications required substantial effort, but the team was ultimately successfully in finding adequate material.
Despite its myriad challenges, the project completed on schedule in May 2022, opening another major portion of the Grand Parkway first envisioned nearly 60 years ago,
