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NTTA Reaches Out to Tarrant County Vendors with Southwest Parkway Business Opportunities The NTTA Business Diversity Department held its first Vendor Outreach Symposium in Tarrant County on June 2 as a way to increase its outreach efforts and market Southwest Parkway (SWP) contracting opportunities to the public. More than 100 attendees participated in the event that was held at Goodwill Industries in southeast Fort Worth.
SWP is a new, 8.7-mile limited-access toll road in south¬west Tarrant County that is expected to extend from the Fort Worth central business district to southwest Fort Worth. The project is estimated to cost $1.1 billion to $1.3 billion, which includes Union Pacific Railroad (UPRR) related construction.
During the symposium, participants met with NTTA’s executive and senior management, project delivery and business diversity staff. Participants also received information about how to do business with NTTA and how to become certified as a minority or women business enterprise and disadvantaged business enterprise (DBE). NTTA recognized potential prime contractors and subcontractors in attendance and encouraged them to network and develop teams that will enable them to meet the 12.5 percent DBE and five percent minority/women/small business enterprise goals that have been set for the project.
“With a construction project of this magnitude, it is good to see the NTTA focused on minority participation in Fort Worth,” said Devoyd Jennings, president of the Fort Worth Metropolitan Black Chamber of Commerce and symposium participant. “I am looking forward to seeing the same commitment throughout the bidding process.”
The symposium was timely considering approximately $133.9 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds have been allocated to the SWP project by the North Central Texas Council of Governments through the Texas Transportation Commission. As a result, project partners – NTTA, the City of Fort Worth and Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) – have agreed to advance Section 3A, the Interstate 20/SWP interchange portion of the corridor. Bids for this section are expected to be advertised in July with construction anticipated to start in fall 2009. NTTA’s cost for SWP is estimated at $865 million, but is subject to change with the final project agreement.
A proposed con¬tinuation of SWP to the south is currently under design by the TxDOT and is expected to provide a continuous route from Fort Worth to Cleburne. Contingent upon reaching a project agreement with TxDOT and final funding of the project, SWP is expected to open to traffic in 2012.
For more information about SWP or to receive the monthly corridor progress report, go to http://www.ntta.org/AboutUs/Projects/SouthwestParkway.htm.
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