Texas 130 builders concealed road's flaws, new owners say in lawsuit
The original owners of the Texas 130 tollway south of Mustang Ridge knew before the road opened that both its pavement and its finances were doomed, a lawsuit filed Thursday by the new owners alleges, yet concealed that information from its investors and paid almost $330 million to a company they had created to build the road.
The 41-mile road’s current owners — made up primarily of those who lent the Ferrovial S.A. of Spain and Zachry Construction Corp. of San Antonio about $1.22 billion to design and build Texas 130 and then took over the bankrupt road in 2017 — are asking a federal bankruptcy court in Austin to award them all money paid for construction between February 2011 and December 2012.
That current ownership group, who took over the road as it emerged from bankruptcy still owing much of what it had borrowed, includes the U.S. Department of Transportation, which had lent the project almost $500 million. The current owners estimate that repairing cracks and heaving pavement at multiple locations, both work that has already occurred and still to come, will cost $130 million.
The 14 defendants, all of them affiliates of either Ferrovial or Zachry, or both, includes Central Texas Highway Constructors, which according to the lawsuit was owned half and half by the two parent company. That company, known as CTHC in the lawsuit, had a contract for about $924 million to build four-lane tollway between Mustang Ridge and Seguin.
Read more: https://www.statesman.com/news/texas-130-builders-concealed-road-flaws-new-owners-say-lawsuit/WsOyIytKbZouWGrdPEAYMK/
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