concession

The Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission's implicit bid in the state's lease concession procurement is $5.3b, versus a likely top bid by private sector bidders in the range $9b to $13b. The $5.3b implicit bid is cited by the Commonwealth Foundation thinktank in Harrisburg today.
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Pennsylvania DOT has set a new deadline for bids on the Pennsylvania Turnpike concession at the end of this week. But while there is a real intention on the part of the state to make the new deadline stick it may slip again like last week's, according to people who can only be characterized as insiders.
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Florida DOT have put the Jacksonville outer beltway concession procurement on hold, they've announced. FDOT District 2 secretary Charles Baldwin says state lawyers told him yesterday morning they were no longer sure that he could tell bidders on the First Coast Outer Beltway concession that they would be exempt from property tax.
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Governor Rendell's staff say the deadline for bids for a longterm concession on the Pennsylvania Turnpike have been pushed back. On April 16 they had said they wanted bids by the end of the month (this evening). Today they are saying the bids will be accepted up to a deadline as much as two weeks off - mid-May.

Qualified bidders are being asked for offers on a concession agreement the terms of which were outlined April 16.
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Jose Lopez head of Cintra in North America more than once has explained in his accented but very clear english his company's approach to bidding for toll concessions: "We study very hard, we examine every aspect, we bring in our experts, sometimes other experts, we do traffic and revenue studies, not just one sometimes we get another. We think about the risks, we look at the costs, what will it cost us to borrow, what is the rate of return our shareholders expect.

"We do lots of due diligence.
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After months of rancorous arguments TxDOT has backed down agreeing to NTTA terms, reaching a kind of agreement on the value of the toll concession on State Highway 161 (TX161) in the south central part of the Dallas-Ft Worth metro area. Agreement on the "market valuation" of the concession with NTTA allowed construction of the road to begin today.
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North Texas Tollway Authority (NTTA) continues a protracted effort to gain a toll concession on State Highway 161 (TX161) for about $500m less than investors are willing to advance. NTTA says the project is worth $1200m or about $300m more than the $900m that the 18km (11 mile) highway will cost to build. 762 words  read more »

Florida DOT will be holding an industry forum in late April in Orlando to explore "monetization, including leasing" of Alligator Alley. Alligator Alley is the nickname adopted as a real name for the east-west highway on the southern end of I-75 - a 125km (78 mile) 2+2 lane expressway that runs from the northwestern suburbs of metropolitan Miami due west across the peninsula to Naples on the Gulf coast.
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The Dulles Greenway is getting advantageous new arrangements for regulation of its concession that are a rebuff to oppoents. Activists have been trying to freeze toll rates and give regulators arbitrary powers. Under a new bill HB1140 the operators of the privately built tollroad in northern Virginia get to increase their tolls up to amounts already approved by regulators through 2012. The Greenway runs 23km (14 miles between Dulles and Leesburg VA.
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A Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission spokesman says that Cintra has been getting privileged access to Turnpike information in the run up to a concession RFP as a result of influence by a former staffer to the state governor Ed Rendell. 501 words  read more »

SH 130 Concession Company LLC finalized the legal details of a financial close with Texas DOT on a $1,360m toll concession to build SH130 segments 5&6 Thursday and Friday last week in bankers' offices in New York City - at Orrick, 666 Fifth Avenue. The actual money flows should occur on Thursday or Friday (Mar 13 or 14) this week, Jose Maria Lopez de Fuentes, president of Cintra North America, told us this morning.
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Spanish international infrastructure companies dominate in the initial statements of qualification for the big Jacksonville Florida "First Coast Outer Beltway" toll concession. Florida DOT released the details of the four groups that have submitted Statements of Qualifications, the first step. 214 words  read more »

A 36 page bill, SB1280, has been introduced in the Pennsylvania Senate to privatize the business operations of the Pennsylvania Turnpike under a 50 year lease concession agreement. The text of the bill SB1280 is downloadable at the bottom of the page. It was introduced by Senator John Gordner, a Republican. 1004 words  read more »

Under Governor Corzine's draft legislation to monetize New Jersey's tollroads, the New Jersey Turnpike, the Garden State Parkway, the Atlantic City Expressway and NJ440 would be transferred to a New Jersey Turnpike Authority reconstituted as New Jersey Capital Solutions Corporation (NJCSC). 1985 words  read more »

Rendell administration officials say they will be seeking proposals shortly for a longterm lease and concession on the Pennsylvania Turnpike based on limits set for the Turnpike Commission.

The concessionaires will bid on a concession similar to Act 44 that limits toll increases to  inflation indexation or 3%/yr on an annual basis after an initial 25% increase in tolls.
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Virginia DOT has announced an end to the botched procurement of a toll concession to fund improvements to I-81. Since October 2006 it has been clear that the project was going nowhere. Today VDOT used a letter from Kellogg Brown and Root, a lead company in the STAR Solutions consortium, as justification for issuing the official death notice.
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Initially there seemed to be a lot going for the idea of tolling PA/I-80 but over-reaching by the Turnpike Commission now threatens its very existence. Key lawmakers in Pennsylvania are now moving to repeal Act 44 which underpins the Turnpike Commission's plans and are looking craft a compromise with the Rendell administration plan to get bids for a longterm lease/concession.
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There's talk in the legislature in Harrisburg about denying 'foreign' companies the right to bid for a concession on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. That would exclude most of the big bidders!

From what we hear the three big bids are likely to come from:

- Cintra and Macquarie

- Abertis, Deutsche Bank and Babcock & Brown
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Virginia DOT, Transurban and Fluor have signed the contracts and gone to financial close for the construction of four toll lanes plus direct connector ramps on 23km (14 miles) of the Capital Beltway (I-495) in northern Virginia between the Springfield interchange and just short of the Maryland line at the Potomac River. 1914 words  read more »