September 29, 2023

WILMINGTON, N.C. – Balfour Beatty celebrates the completion of North Carolina Department of Transportation’s (NCDOT) Military Cutoff Road extension project during a ribbon cutting ceremony on Sept. 28 in Wilmington, North Carolina. Local and state officials, NCDOT Division 3 staff and Balfour Beatty teammates attended the event, which concluded with the official opening of several new miles of roadway for travelers in and around New Hanover and Pender counties.

Balfour Beatty constructed approximately $95.5 million in improvements along NCDOT’s Market Street corridor to reduce traffic and enhance safety. Work involved extending Military Cutoff Road from Market Street (U.S. 17 Business) to N.C. 140, which was formerly referred to as the Wilmington Bypass.

The four-mile project includes adding bridges, interchanges and a six-lane highway connecting to N.C. 140. Additionally, the project team delivered grading, paving, drainage improvements, soundwalls, bridges and culverts north of U.S. 17 Business, and interchanges where the road now meets U.S. 17 Business and the new intersection at U.S. 17.

To prevent water and soil seepage that is common when building in coastal areas such as Wilmington, the Military Cutoff Road extension project pioneered an innovative continuous flight auger (CFA) post-system method, the first and only NCDOT project to use the CFA post system.

“I am very proud of our teammates for the successful delivery of another vital roadway and bridge project in North Carolina,” said Mark Johnnie, Balfour Beatty US Civils chief operating officer. “Balfour Beatty is honored to be a long-standing partner of NCDOT and grateful for the opportunity to leverage our self-performing civils expertise to provide our client with enhanced transportation solutions throughout the state.”

Balfour Beatty has maintained a growing pipeline of work for NCDOT since 1999 delivering projects such as the award-winning Surf City Topsail Island Bridge Connector project. The company is currently working on multiple projects for NCDOT including Harkers Island Bridge Replacement and U.S. 70 James City projects, and was recently awarded the design-build of improvements to Interstate U.S. 70 between Havelock Bypass and east of Thurman Road and the reconstruction of N.C. 87 and N.C. 11.

Construction on NCDOT’s Military Cutoff Road extension started in 2017 and is part of NCDOT’s 10-year State Transportation Improvement program. To learn more about NCDOT’s improvement projects please visit ncdot.gov.