Infra Insight Blog

The Regents of the University of California (the "Regents"), on behalf of University of California, Merced ("UC Merced"), issued a Request for Qualifications today for the UC Merced 2020 Project (the "Project").

UC Merced is the newest campus of the University of California and is strategically situated in San Joaquin Valley at the foot of the Sierra Nevada near world-famous Yosemite National Park.

The Project represents the second phase of campus development under UC Merced’s Long Range Development Plan and involves a significant campus expansion to support projected ...

On March 26, the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) celebrated the grand opening of the $1.2 billion I-595 Express Corridor Improvements Project (Project) in Broward County, Florida.  The Project is the nation’s first Availability Payment public-private partnership and the first public-private highway deal in Florida.

The Project consists of the reconstruction of the I-595 mainline from the I-75/Sawgrass Expressway interchange to the I-595/I-95 interchange on I-595 and from Peters Road to Griffin Road on Florida's Turnpike, for a total project length of 13 miles ...

The Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) announced yesterday that it received four financial proposals in response to a Request for Proposals issued by FDOT on October 11, 2013 for the I-4 Ultimate Project. On June 5, 2013, FDOT announced a shortlist of four proposers, all of whom submitted financial proposals yesterday and technical proposals on February 12, 2014 seeking the contract to design, build, finance, operate and maintain the project.

The estimated $2 billion project, which will be developed through a public-private partnership concession agreement, includes ...

Posted by guest blogger William Moore.

William Moore of Vianovo works with the Transportation Transformation Group,  a consortia of public and private entities that looks at ways of improving the funding and financing of the nation's transportation infrastructure, which is co-chaired by Nossaman Partner Geoffrey Yarema.

Absent swift action by Congress, state departments of transportation will begin to have cash flow problems that could delay payments to vendors and slow projects.  Without action by the fall, new projects may have to be shelved until Congress can resolve the ...

On Wednesday, March 5, the House Transportation and Infrastructure Special Panel on Public-Private Partnerships held a hearing entitled "Overview of Public-Private Partnerships for Highway and Transit Projects" to review the role of P3s in delivery of highway and transit projects. The witness list and links to their testimony are as follows:

Mr. Joseph Kile, Assistant Director for Microeconomic Studies, Congressional Budget Office (CBO) Written Testimony

Mr. James M. Bass, Interim Executive Director and Chief Financial Officer, Texas Department of Transportation Written ...

On March 4, 2014, the City of Indianapolis announced that three development teams have been short-listed to compete to design, build, finance, operate and maintain a new Marion County Consolidated Justice Facility.  Replacing existing facilities, the proposed new facility will consolidate various aging and inefficient facilities throughout the county, and may house separate adult and juvenile detention, inmate processing, the prosecutor, public defender, probation and community corrections, clerk, coroner, crime lab and other state and federal agencies.  The new complex ...

On Tuesday, March 4th federal officials recommended the Maryland Transit Administration’s Purple Line Public-Private Partnership Project ("Purple Line") to receive $100 million in federal construction money as part of the Obama Administration’s 2015 fiscal year budget. The Federal Transit Administration recommended the Purple Line as one of seven large transit projects in the nation to receive full funding grant agreements, which allow for a longer-term payment commitment by the federal government. The other six projects are the Westside Subway Expansion – Section 1 ...

We report on the result of decisions by the United States Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit and the United States District Court for  the District of Hawaii that allow the construction of a 20-mile, $5 billion, rail transit project to proceed.  This project will transform the City of Honolulu, which now has some of the worst traffic  in the United States.  Nossaman was counsel to the City of Honolulu in the litigation.

These cases clarify important aspects of the alternative selection process under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and section 4(f) of the Department of ...

On February 26, President Obama announced a proposal to fund a four year surface transportation bill that would increase spending by 22% for highways and 70% for transit over current levels.  The White House provided a Fact Sheet that outlines to proposal.   The current law, the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (MAP-21) expires at the end of September.  That means that a new bill or an extension must be agreed to by both Houses of Congress by that time.  The President's envisions a $302 billion four year bill that builds on the substantive provisions of MAP-21.  More ...

In a move that should make successor agencies to redevelopment agencies happy, a new law was passed and approved by the Governor on February 18, 2014 (AB 471) that, among other things, amends Section 53395.4 of the California Government Code to allow infrastructure financing districts to finance a project or portion of a project located within a redevelopment project area or former redevelopment project area.

Infrastructure financing district law now provides a mechanism to finance projects that would have otherwise been financed by redevelopment agencies but for their ...