INVESTOR PIKE:Camino-Colombia pike in Laredo TX Movin Dirt

The Camino Colombia is seen as largely a truck tollroad, though there is increasing car traffic of Mexicans driving to San Antonio and Dallas for shopping and medical treatment. Traffic from San Antonio wanting to use the Colombia Solidarity bridge into Mexico presently has to travel almost into central Laredo, then turn 135 degrees to take TX-1472 (Mines Road) back north along the Rio Grande, following a 70km (40mi) V-shaped route. The Camino Colombia tollroad ‘short cut’ will save 25 to 30 mins. The pike will for now be a 2-lane road through flattish grazing land with an IC at I-35 including connections to frontage roads and a diamond IC at US-83. Otherwise it will be built with no grade separations, but the layout provides for upgrade to full 2x2-lane motorway standard at a later date.

Shoulders

The initial roadway section will slightly exceed TXDOT standards as it will be 13.3m (44') of pavement providing 2x3.65m (12') lanes plus a full 3m (10') breakdown shoulder each side. Benavides said: “We could have skimped a bit but we wanted room for the trucks to pull off on the shoulder either side. So we said, let’s spend it (extra) and make it a real safe road.”

Granite Construction has the main construction contract on a 510-day schedule and work started May 28. The IC at I-35 is the most elaborate piece of construction for the project and is costing $8m. The whole construction project is an approx $50m deal which works out at a low $0.7m/lane-km.

Principal of the Camino Colombia Inc (CCI) is Carlos Y Benavides III, a prominent businessman and part of an established area landowning family with oil, gas and cattle interests. He and nine other landowners are providing 1200 acres of their land for the toll road and have the shares in the private company which owns the right of way and will own the road. They have raised some of the money for their equity by securing their business assets to borrowings from International Bancshares Corp (IBC). Another company, First Texas Toll Road LP has been formed by the same owners to operate the pike.

Traffic will be able to use the northern part of the road without paying a toll for now, and it will provide access for some of the grazing properties along the way. The toll plaza will be 7km (4.5mi) from the southern end of the road. URS Greiner is working on a toll strategy, Bonavides told us. He says preliminary study showed trucks would pay between $12 and $20/trip to avoid the V-diversion on TX-1472 but he wants to be “very flexible” about toll rates: “We will probably try different things with tolls and find out what works best.”

Bonavides says he doesn’t want to talk about traffic projections, but others have said the immediate prospect is for about 2,000 trucks/day. The road is being built to cater for the strongly increasing NAFTA trade. A major uncertainty is the extent to which the city of Laredo will build competitive border crossings. In addition to two older toll bridges it has another (Br #4) under construction and plans for another.

A lot of the attractiveness of one border crossing versus another however is the facilities for transferring trailers and clearing customs and dealing with immigration and drug searches. Drivers and their tractors normally stop at the border and hand trailers to another driver and tractor. The toll rate looms relatively small in the overall cost of each crossing. Customs agents are widely used to work the systems.

Immediately on the south side of the toll plaza, CCI will build a border staging facility covering 20 acres, a kind of truck stop where trailers will be swapped and customs agents will process vehicles and truck drivers refuel and get snacks. It will save another 80 acres for future expansion.

Bear Sterns’ James Taylor advised CCI on financing which was finalized by Lehman Bros. Unrated bonds worth $75m were placed with NY Life and John Hancock Insurance.

The toll road got state sanction from the Texas Transp Commission in Jan 97, six years after Benavides and his neighbors came up with the idea and gained local support, developed a business plan, and got environmental clearances and permits. CCI has been in negotiation with Brown & Root and then had a contract for design-build with Raytheon Constructors. They did much detailed engineering design but Benavides says the relationship was ended on friendly terms and Raytheon was paid for its design work. Apparently Granite’s lower price made the project financable. (See TRnl#13 Mar 97 p3, TRnl#24 Feb 98 p1. Contact Carlos Y Benavides CCI 956 723 6779/5581)