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On Tuesday, Dallas Area Rapid Transit’s (DART) board awarded a design-build contract to a joint venture between Kiewit, Stacy and Witbeck, Reyes and Parsons (KSWRP) for the construction of a 5.2-mile extension of the Orange Line from the future Belt Line Station to Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport’s Terminal A.

The board selected KSWRP in the final push to complete the $150 million project, known as Irving-3 (I-3), DART officials said in a prepared statement.

Construction is expected to begin in early 2012, with the I-3 section scheduled to open on Dec. 15, 2014. The airport is building the Terminal A station. The first two sections of the Orange Line — Bachman Station to Las Colinas Convention Center, and then on to Belt Line Station at SH 161 and Belt Line on airport property — are slated to open in July and December 2012, respectively.

The project will be funded locally, but because the project is multi-modal — serving airport, light-rail and bus services — DART is pursuing $130 million in federal Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery III funds under a program aimed at multi-modal transportation projects, agency officials said.