Texas’s outer ring is back in business. TxDOT has selected a Ferrovial-Webber joint venture to design, build and maintain SH 99 Grand Parkway Segment B-1, a roughly 15-mile project southeast of Houston valued at $1.47 billion. Contract execution is targeted for this summer, with substantial completion set for the winter of 2031-32.
What’s in the package
The work covers four new TxDOT-operated tolled lanes plus discontinuous frontage roads from FM 2403 to FM 646, two direct connectors at the SH 99/SH 35 interchange, and about 5.9 miles of operational improvements along SH 35. The headline figure splits into a $1.438 billion design-build contract and a $28.25 million capital-maintenance agreement that runs through year 15 of operations. Ferrovial holds 70% of the JV equity and Webber holds the balance, an allocation that matches Ferrovial’s larger civil portfolio in Texas and Webber’s local execution bench.
For context: Grand Parkway is the slow-growing 184-mile outer ring around metro Houston. Segments A through I have been advancing in pieces for two decades. B-1 closes a meaningful gap on the southeast side, which TxDOT framed as an economic-development and hurricane-evacuation play for Brazoria and Galveston counties.
What it signals for the design-build pipeline
This is the second big U.S. design-build win for Ferrovial in 12 months and it lands during a stretch where megaproject pricing has gotten harder, not easier. Steel mill products are up about 20% year over year and construction input prices ran at a 12.6% annualized clip in early 2026, so any contractor pricing a 15-year fixed maintenance leg has to bake in real escalation risk. The Ferrovial-Webber price suggests TxDOT and the JV negotiated escalation language that both sides can live with.
Texas keeps showing up as the most active design-build market in the country. The state has structured its toll-road pipeline to push design and construction risk to the contractor, and the major civil JVs have been willing to take it. Watch for the next set of Grand Parkway segments — D-2 and H — to move into procurement on a similar template.