51
may
2014
infrastructure
investor
SPECIAL FEATURE
Pasco not in gridlock,” while population
growth in the county is “enormous”.
The reason the project does not
appear on the FDOT’s list is because
despite the RFP and a deadline exten-
sion, the state agency did not receive any
responses to its request.
Certain communities that would be
affected by the project voiced concern
about segments of the expressway that
would be elevated, FDOT spokeswoman
Kristin Carson explained.
IPP has been asked tomodify its origi-
nal proposal and is expected to do so in
the near future after holding scheduled
publicmeetings and reaching out to com-
munities that may be affected by the $2
billion project.
But P3activity is no longer reliant solely
on the transportationsector thanks toanew
lawpassedby theFlorida legislature last July.
EXPANDING THE SCOPE
The Partnership for Public Facilities and
Infrastructure Act significantly expands
the type of projects that can be financed
by private companies. They include any
ferry or mass transit facility, parking facil-
ity, airport or seaport, health care facil-
ity, school, energy infrastructure, sport-
ing facility, “or any other public facility
or infrastructure that is used or will be
used by the public at large or in support
of an accepted public purpose or activity”.
In addition to expanding the scope
of qualifying projects, the new law also
allows for the submission of unsolicited
proposals.
The state legislature tried passing a
similar law in 2012 but was unsuccessful.
“While the concept is similar, this
version has a lot less red tape,” Lee A.
Weintraub, vice chair of construction
law and litigation at Becker & Poliakoff,
who helped draft bill CS/CS/HB 85 told
Infrastructure Investor
at the time.
He pointed out the protection the
new law afforded lenders by giving prec-
edence to any contractual appropriations
over non-contractual appropriations.
While the law does not provide for
a dedicated P3 authority, it does call for
the creation of a seven-member task force
charged with formulating recommenda-
tions to create a uniformprocess for pro-
ject procurement on the local level.
The task force is expected to pro-
vide, among other things, criteria for
awarding a P3 contract, timelines for
selecting proposals and negotiating
agreements, and procedures for finan-
cial review and analysis.
The seven-member team, which will
be disbanded at the end of this year, has
until July 1 to submit its recommenda-
tions to the Governor, the President of
the Senate and the Speaker of theHouse
of Representatives.
This new legislation paved the way for
Miami-Dade County to issue a Request
for Expressions of Interest (REOI) for a
number of water and wastewater projects
in southern Florida, including wastewater
pump stations, the expansion of an exist-
ing wastewater treatment plant, a biosol-
ids processing plant, newwater treatment
plants, and new maintenance facilities.
According to Jennifer Messemer,
public information officer of Miami-Dade
County, the local authority received 32
responses to the REOI that was issued
last November. Miami-Dade officials are
analysing the information and expect to
take the next step in the next sixmonths,
Messemer told
Infrastructure Investor
.
This year saw the introduction of a
new bill in the state’s House of Repre-
sentatives.
House Bill 1051, filed in February
by state Representative Ken Roberson,
aims at protecting information that may
be proprietary in unsolicited proposals.
The bill, if enacted, would exempt unso-
licited P3 proposals from public records
requirements for a specified period of
time in order to protect companies’ infor-
mation, ideas or strategies.
The bill has been presented before
several House committees and a com-
panion version of the bill was introduced
in the Senate in early April.
But, with the exception of this bill,
activity in Florida’s P3 market seems to
be at a standstill.
“There have been some P3s at the
state university level,” Weintraub said.
One is the UniversityCity project
led by Florida International Univer-
sity in partnership with, among others,
the Miami-Dade Expressway Authority,
Miami-Dade County, FDOT and IBM.
The project includes a parking facility,
bus rapid transit, and student housing,
as well as other components.
MIXED USE
Miami-Dade College is also looking to
develop a mixed-use project on its medi-
cal campus through a public-private
partnership.
“Most of these aren’t pure P3s [...]
with performance based payments to
the private sector out of availability pay-
ments,” Weintraub explained.
Instead, they are different amalga-
mations of partnering concepts between
public and private entities to deliver
public facilities he said.
“Florida is definitely still trying to
figure things out and we have a long
way to go,” Weintraub acknowledged.
“But the desire is still there and things
are moving, albeit at a slow pace and in
a mostly non-traditional form.”
With the Partnership for Public Facil-
ities and Infrastructure Act Guidelines
Task Force due to turn in its recommen-
dations on July 1 and a preferred bidder
expected to be announced this spring
for the I-4 Ultimate project, things might
once again pick up in the Florida P3
market.
After all, Governor Rick Scott has said
that he hopes tomake Florida the biggest
P3 state in the country. Projects may cur-
rently be few, but one thing clearly not
lacking is ambition.
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