Three express interest in Penn Pike concessioning of MFE/SB

Three groups have expressed interest in public private partnerships (P3s) with the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission over two projects on the Southern Beltway and the northern portion of the Mon Fayette Expressway. The groups are:

1. MVP3 (Mon Valley Public Private Partners)

- HDR Inc./Kimball Corp./Gannett Fleming Inc./Figg Engineering Group, design
- The Walsh Group, construction
- PNC Capital Markets, finance
- Wilbur Smith Associates, traffic & revenue
- Transfield Services North America, operations & maintenance

2. Global Via Infrastructuras and URS

- Global Via (Madrid; Houston, Miami, and NY), construction and equity
- URS, design, engineering, construcion

3. –ACS Infrastructure Development and Dragados USA

- ACS Infrastructure (Madrid, Coral Gables, FlL), construction, equity
- Dragados USA , design-build contractor, joint venture leader

The projects consist of :

- northern segment of the Mon Fayette Expressway Route 51 to I-376, a Y-plan of with arms heading to I-376 in downtown Pittsburgh and to the east to Monroeville, a total of 39km (24 miles) of inner area urban expressway, estimated project cost of $3.8b (yellow on map)

- Southern Beltway Route 22 to I-79 a 21km (13 mile) estimated cost $660m, this is an extension east of the Findlay Connector the 10km (6mi) segment of the Southern Beltway opened in 2006 from the front of Pittsburgh Airport (purple on map)_

- Southern Beltway I-79 to Mon Fayette Expressway, also 21km (13mi) costing $735m (cacky color on map

In conversation in early December before the proposals were received Turnpike CEO Joe Brimmeier said he was hopeful that one or two of the Southern Beltway projects would prove financially viable to a concessionaire, but expressed less optimism about the MFE/51-376.

A statement from the Turnpike today said: "All teams comprise capabilities to design, construct, finance, operate and maintain the new roads. Each proposal indicated that further analysis is necessary before providing dollar estimates. Respondents noted that additional team members may be needed to advance certain aspects of the projects. The next step is to carefully analyze the documents provided by responding consortiums."

see http://www.paturnpike.com/MonFaySB/

TOLLLROADSnews 2009-01-16