Contractor Earmarked for Currituck Bridge

Here is a quality article found in the TollRoads News by one of the blog readers, Tony, highlighting who is pegged for the bridge when/if we go to construction. Thank you Tony.



ACS selected for Mid Currituck Bridge NC
Posted Fri, 2008-12-19 20:52
ACS Mid Currituck Bridge north carolina turnpike authority
A group led by ACS Infrastructure has been scored highest by staff of North Carolina Turnpike Authority in an assessment of private sector proposals for a possible concession to develop the Mid-Currituck toll bridge in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. ACS is teamed with Dragados, Lochner-MMM lead engineers and environmental, Arup traffic & revenue and Planning Communities public outreach. The project still has to be developed to gain local acceptance and get through environmental permitting with alternative concepts to be studied and compared. And it has to be demonstrated during this first phase that the bridge project is financially viable for it to move on to a toll concession.

Dragados is named as lead contractor with Traylor and Weeks Marine doing bridgeworks, but that is obviously a while off.

ACS beat out groups led by Skanska, Hochtief and Bechtel in the staff scoring.

Reuters carried a report from Madrid Spain where ACS is headquartered that ACS has "won the contract" for the project. North Carolina Turnpike Authority confirm that ACS is the top scorer and that ACS will be first in line in negotiations for a contract. But there is no contract yet.

The intitial contract will be for project development work to get the project to the stage when it can be designed, financed and built. This is being called a Predevelopment Agreement (PDA) and Steve DeWitt of North Carolina Turnpike says they hope to have this detailed and signed by the end of February.

The project development work will be shared between ACS and the turnpike authority and will provide that ACS will have first choice to negotiate a toll concession if the project proves viable. DeWitt of NCTA says the project development work should be complete by mid-2010.

At issue is improving mobility between the mainland and the barrier islands immediately south of the Virginia border on the Atlantic coast - often referred to as the Northern Beaches of the Outer Banks - an area of weekender and vacation houses, and motels with both ocean frontage and the sheltered waters of the sound.

One road alternative is improving the existing route mostly on the approach roads on either side of to the existing US158 bridge which is at the southern end of Currituck Sound. The existing Wright Memorial Bridge lands not far from Kitty Hawk, famous for the world's first airplane flight of the Wright brothers a hundred years ago.

Best site for a mid-sound bridge called Mid Currituck Bridge is about 28km (17 miles) to the north of the existing bridge nearer where US185, the main road from I-95 approaches the Sound providing a more direct crossing to many of the northern barrier island communities. That bridge would be about 11km (7 miles) total and about 8km (5 miles) over water landing south of Corolla.

A NCTA presentation earlier this year puts the cost of a 2-lane bridge at $385m. A 4-lane bridge will be looked at too. It would allow higher speed travel and about 3 to 4 minutes time savings. The bridge's capital cost would be perhaps $150m extra, and seems unlikely to be warranted.

Possible improvements to approach roads on either side of a mid-sound bridge range between about $100m and $600m depending on their length and scope. Costs of improving the approach roads are higher for the existing bridge because the roads to be improved are longer, but the bridge cost is avoided.

Total capital costs are not very different.

If there's no new bridge there's no toll concession, Steve DeWitt says. Only a new bridge would be tolled. The Wright Bridge at the south end of the Sound is tax-supported.

Similar project development agreements with a right of first refusal to negotiate a subsequent concession have been done in Texas.

http://www.ncturnpike.org/projects/Mid_Currituck/

http://www.ncturnpike.org/pdf/Mid-CurrituckProposers.pdf

http://www.outerbanks.org

ACS Group

ACS Group or in spanish Grupo ACS is related through a 26% ownership to Abertis and to Hochtief through a 30% ownership. It had sales of about $30b (E21b) in 2007 and profit of $2.2b (E1.6b) and 19k employees with work in many countries. It has about 40 concessions in process.

Its share price at around E31 is about 25% off its high in the past year.

http://www.grupoacs.com

SEMANTICS: the "Pre" in Predevelopment Agreement seems misleading since it is an agreement to develop before you go to a detailed concession and design, financing and construction, which makes it a Pre-concession Agreement or a Development Agreement.

TOLLROADSnews 2008-12-19