AECOM Joins Warkworth–Te Hana Road Team as Design Partner

AECOM (ACM ) announced on August 31, 2026, that it has been appointed design partner for the Warkworth to Te Hana project in New Zealand, the first of three nationally significant road sections along the Northland Corridor Program, a planned 100-kilometer motorway connecting Auckland to Whangārei. AECOM will partner with ACCIONA, the lead contractor, which together with Aberdeen Investments comprises the Northway Consortium, the company said in a press release.

Once complete, the project will upgrade the existing State Highway 1 into a higher-standard, safer and more resilient motorway. The appointment places AECOM inside the delivery structure for what the New Zealand government has described as the largest public-private partnership in the country’s history.

Contract Structure and Project Cost

NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA) awarded Northway the contract to design, build, finance, operate and maintain Warkworth to Te Hana through a public-private partnership, according to the agency’s project page. The Northway consortium comprises Acciona Concesiones SL, Aberdeen Investments, Global Sustainable Infrastructure GP IV Ltd and Acciona Construction New Zealand Ltd, alongside New Zealand partners including Downer New Zealand and AECOM.

ACCIONA stated that the Northway Consortium reached financial close with NZTA on July 31, 2026, with a total overall project cost of approximately NZ$3.649 billion net present value over its 32-year construction and operating duration, according to the contractor’s announcement. That figure includes a nominal cost of around NZ$3 billion to design and build the road. Northway is responsible for financing, delivering and operating the project under a long-term concession arrangement with NZTA, and ACCIONA will undertake the design, construction, operation and maintenance of the project, self-performing critical elements including major earthworks, tunnelling, civil works and systems.

New Zealand Transport Minister Chris Bishop confirmed the Project Agreement between the Crown and the Northway consortium was signed and reached financial close on July 30, 2026, in a government release. Bishop said the final project cost, at a net present value of NZ$3.649 billion, came in around NZ$251 million below the NZ$3.9 billion Public Sector Comparator approved by Cabinet in March 2025, which estimates what the project would cost under traditional public sector procurement.

Scope, Design and Expected Benefits

The project scope includes a new 26-kilometre, four-lane expressway with grade-separated interchanges at Warkworth, Wellsford and Te Hana. It also includes 15 standardised bridges, two underpasses, numerous large culverts, 12 wetland stormwater treatment basins, and twin tunnels of around one kilometre through Kraack Hill above the Dome Valley near Dome Forest, according to the government release.

AECOM said its design solution addresses key safety challenges for current road users through a new system interchange, an optimized alignment that improves curves and sight distances, and safer gradients. The company said the alignment enhances resilience by reducing impacts from flooding, landslides and other extreme weather events, and that its design reuses on-site materials, reducing the need for imported materials and minimizing waste, which it said will lower haulage and embodied carbon while delivering cost efficiencies.

The government release said the expressway’s benefits over its life are expected to include 145 fewer deaths and serious injuries, travel time savings of seven to ten minutes per vehicle, more than 1,000 fewer closure hours caused by unexpected events such as severe weather, and the removal of around 1,000 heavy vehicles a day from the existing State Highway 1 main streets through Wellsford and Te Hana.

“The Northland Corridor is a transformational investment that will improve safety, resilience and connectivity across the upper North Island,” said Mark McManamny, AECOM’s Chief Executive of Australia and New Zealand. Russell Jackson, interim chief executive of AECOM’s global Transportation business, said the selection “reinforces our reputation as a trusted leader in the transportation engineering services.”

Financing and Delivery Timeline

Under the financing structure, the government provided NZTA with a NZ$1.6 billion, 10-year loan to fund a Crown Capital Contribution toward construction, agreed by Cabinet in August 2025. NZTA will make these payments to the contractor during the latter stages of construction, beginning from July 1, 2028. NZTA will also make regular Unitary Charge payments once the road opens, linked to agreed performance, safety, maintenance and availability standards, with financial deductions applying if those standards or key performance indicators are not met, according to the Beehive release.

The Northway consortium was confirmed as preferred bidder in May 2026 after NZTA shortlisted three competitive consortia. Construction planning, mobilisation, detailed design and early works are due to commence from August 2026, with main construction starting in November 2027. The road is expected to open in 2033, full works are expected to be completed in 2034, and the terms of the Project Agreement expire in 2058, when the road will be handed back to NZTA.

NZTA lists the project’s current status as design, with estimated project dates running from August 2026 to December 2033. The agency said detailed design and early works are expected to begin later in 2026, and that the Northway consortium expects around 60 percent of total physical works spending to flow through local supply chains.

AECOM, a Fortune 500 firm, reported revenue of US$16.1 billion in fiscal year 2025.