Ferrovial closes financing for highway project in Atlanta
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Ferrovial, through its subsidiary Ferrovial Agroman, has achieved financial closure for the contract to design, build and finance the I-285/SR 400 public private partnership (PPP) project in Atlanta, Georgia (USA).
Bank of America has provided a tax-exempt bank loan for at most US$458 million, maturing in 2022. This is the first time this funding approach has been used in the US for a PPP design, construction and finance project.
Financial closure was achieved after the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) selected the bid by North Perimeter Contractors in December 2015. At that time, the winning consortium submitted a US$460 million bid that lowered the total originally projected US$1.1 billion cost to US$679 million.
Ferrovial Agroman, along with engineering firms Louis Berger and Neel Shaffer, will be responsible for the 16.5 km road project design and construction.
The road project involves the construction of barrier-separated collector-distributor (CD) lanes along I-285 and SR 400, the reconstruction of existing ramps, new flyover bridges, as well as the reconstruction and widening of several existing bridges in the interchange area. It also includes two miles of improvements along SR 400. The project will facilitate east-west movement on I-285 and north-south movement on SR 400
The project is scheduled to be completed in 2020. The road, which is part of the GDOT P3 program, aims to save travel time and reduce delays for all users by 20,000 hours per day.
We have recently reported on several road PPP projects in the USA:
