NC awards contract for the last leg of Raleigh’s Outer Loop. When it should be finished
The state has awarded another contract to build a six-lane highway between Interstate 40 and Interstate 87, putting it on course to complete the Outer Loop around Raleigh by the end of the decade.
The N.C. Department of Transportation and the N.C. Turnpike Authority will pay $287 million for four miles of N.C. 540 near Johnston County. Earlier this fall, they awarded a $450 million contract to build six miles of the highway, also known as the Triangle Expressway, from south of Rock Quarry Road to I-87 in Knightdale.
Work will begin as soon as next year, with the final 10-mile section of the loop scheduled to open in 2028.
When that happens, the six-lane Triangle Expressway toll road will be complete from Research Triangle Park across southern Wake County to Knightdale. N.C. 540 will connect with Interstate 540, which completes the Outer Loop across northern Wake.
Work on an 18-mile section of N.C. 540 across southern Wake began in 2019. When it opens by next summer, it will extend the expressway from N.C. 55 in Apex to a massive interchange with I-40 and U.S. 70 near the Johnston County line.
NCDOT and the Turnpike Authority decided to award two contracts for the final leg of the highway instead of one. Smaller contracts allow more companies to bid on the work, including smaller and local firms who might not be able to take on the whole thing, said Logen Hodges, spokesman for the Turnpike Authority.
The final $287 million contract went to a joint venture of Wilson-based S.T. Wooten and Branch Civil of Roanoke, Virginia. The $450 million contract went to a joint venture of the Fred Smith Company of Raleigh and Flatiron Construction, a Colorado company with an East Coast division based in Morrisville.
The 18-mile section across southern Wake County was also broken into separate contracts, which came to a total of $2.2 billion.
