Development agreement

Lone Star Infrastructure has been judged by the Texas Department of Transportation to offer the best long-term value in building State Highway 130. TxDOT could not yet put a dollar value on the project, because it was still negotiating the details of the contract.

Lone Star is a consortium of engineering and construction firms led by Fluor Daniel. The consortium also includes Balfour Beatty Construction and T.J. Lambrecht Construction.

This will be the first exclusive development agreement for a state highway project in Texas. An exclusive development agreement will allow the state to hire one consortium to do all the work on the project—much of it simultaneously—rather than the traditional development process in which the state divides the funding, design, construction and maintenance into separate steps.

Contract discussions were to begin immediately on an agreement under which the consortium would design, construct and maintain the 90-mile stretch of highway from I-35 north of Georgetown to I-10 near Seguin. Highway 130 is a proposed toll road that would relieve congestion on I-35 and other major roadways in the Austin–San Antonio corridor.

As soon as the exclusive development agreement is approved by the Texas Transportation Commission, right-of-way acquisition and detailed design work can begin. With an exclusive development agreement, construction can begin while design work and right-of-way acquisition continues on other parts of the corridor. Traditionally, design work is completed and right-of-way acquired before TxDOT hires a contractor to build a project.