Balfour Beatty has secured a $746m (£575m) deal to rebuild a section of the iconic Interstate 35 in the US.
The contractor will upgrade a 4km chunk of the highway in Austin for the Texas Department of Transportation.
The I-35 runs almost the entire length of the US, from Laredo on the Mexican border to the edge of Lake Superior, which crosses into Canada.
Some 200,000 drivers use the Austin section every day, and the works are designed to enhance connectivity in the city.
Balfour will create eight running lanes, a major new intersection and multiple upgraded access roads.
The UK’s biggest contractor will also build a bridge across Lady Bird Lake to replace a crossing installed in the 1950s. This will be constructed from a barge, requiring complex engineering and marine expertise.
A further bridge and intersection will be built at Riverside Drive to support a future light rail line.
Balfour Beatty group chief executive Leo Quinn said: “This latest contract award demonstrates our leading civil engineering capabilities and is testament to our 30-year history of delivering projects for the Texas Department of Transportation.
“Our selective bidding approach ensures that we leverage our strengths to work with long-term customers in the geographies in which we have proven expertise, strong teams and trusted supply chain partners.”
Construction will start in the first half of next year with completion expected in 2033.
At peak times, Balfour Beatty will directly employ over 150 people on the scheme, which forms part of the Texas Department of Transportation’s I-35 Capital Express Central programme.
Balfour subsidiary Howard S Wright was last month named to deliver multiple renovation projects to various facilities in David Douglas School District in Portland, Oregon.
The company will make $15.7m (£12.1m) of renovations and repairs to facilities including West Powellhurst Elementary, Floyd Light Middle and South Powellhurst.
Meanwhile, Balfour Beatty’s Connect Plus Services division in October formally appointed chartered engineer Louise Haining as managing director.
Previously an interim, she has responsibility for leading the firm’s M25 operations in the UK, having joined the firm in 2017 from Costain and held previous roles with the Environment Agency and National Highways.
