A Balfour Beatty-led consortium has been picked for a $44m project to begin extending Jacksonville, Florida’s Skyway from 2.5 miles in length to 10 miles.

First opened in 1989, the Skyway is an automated people mover running on an elevated monorail. The extended system will have sections at street level.

The Jacksonville Transportation Authority (JTA) has dubbed the three-phase project the “Ultimate Urban Circulator”, or U2C.

Balfour Beatty will use what it calls an “integrated progressive design build” method in collaboration with five companies – Superior Construction Company Southeast, Beep, WGI, Stantec Consulting Services and Miller Electric – to deliver phase one.

This sees the consortium overseeing 60% design of the first three-mile, at-grade service along Bay Street, which JTA calls the Bay Street Innovation Corridor (BSIC).

The JTA board picked the Balfour Beatty consortium at its August meeting. The parties now move to negotiating the terms of a final contract, which the board will vote on later this year.

“We are confident the Balfour Beatty team and its partners will deliver a world-class project on behalf of the taxpayers of Jacksonville, placing our community at the forefront of innovation,” said Nathaniel P. Ford Sr., chief executive of the JTA.

John Harris, senior vice president of Balfour Beatty’s Buildings operations in Florida, called the U2C project “an opportunity of a lifetime” and said the consortium would be a “relentless ally” to JTA.