The Nevada Transportation Board discarded a plan Monday to finance an expansion of a section of Interstate 15 in downtown Las Vegas by entering into a public-private partnership, and instead decided to finance the plan using government-issued bonds.
The board unanimously approved a “design-build” model and will find a single firm to plan and build the project and also approved issuance of $564 million in bonds to pay for the construction portion of the project.
The board will now set a budget for purchasing the right-of-way needed to move forward with the project; a decision is expected at a future meeting.
The project, expected to cost between $1.2 billion and $1.5 billion after the state acquires the right-of-way, should be complete by 2020.
The shift in approach came as the Nevada Department of Transportation changed its recommendation to the board after documents showed the projected cost under the P3 had increased from $602 million to $740 million over the past year. The biggest drivers of the price jump stemmed from higher interest rates, expansion of the scope of the project and increased maintenance costs, according to the Las Vegas Sun.
The project, the most expensive in Nevada’s history, would have been one of the first uses of a P3 to fund a transportation project in the state.
NCPPP
By Editor August 20, 2014