Alaska’s Knik Arm Crossing Route Gets Nod From Feds, Authority Says

ALAMEDA, Calif. — Alaska’s Knik Arm Bridge and Toll Authority announced last week that the Federal Highway Administration has released a formal record of decision approving the route it has planned for its planned Knik Arm Crossing bridge project.

“It is a big milestone for the project,” KABATA executive director Andrew Niemiec said in a phone interview Friday. “It allows us to continue our project development activities.”

The bridge would link Anchorage — densely populated at least in the context of Alaska — with a lightly developed portion of the Matanuska-Susitna Borough across the Knik Arm.

The bridge would be about a mile and a half long, with about 20 miles of associated support roads. KABATA estimates that the project will cost between $650 million and $700 million.

The vision of a Knik Arm bridge has been around for decades, and the authority was founded seven years ago in an effort to make it real.

The project’s financing plans evolved before and may yet evolve again. The state law that created KABATA in 2003 envisioned tolls and revenue bonds from the start.

In 2006, the agency sought and received state legislation authorizing it to enter into a public-private partnership and obtain loans from the federal Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act program, and affirming its toll-setting authority.

In 2007, KABATA placed two development and construction consortiums on its P3 shortlist: one fronted by French firm Bouygues Travaux Publics SA, and the other by Australia’s Macquarie Bank.

But the authority couldn’t really go any further with that process without the federal record of decision, Niemiec said.

“The procurement has been put on hold for two years,” he said. “We’ll be taking a look at that to see whether we need to modify it.”

KABATA may also seek some form of state financial support when lawmakers return to Juneau in January.

“It’s fair to say we’ll be talking with the administration and legislature about the state’s role in the project will be,” Niemiec said.

In 2007, the U.S. Department of Transportation allocated the KABATA project up to $600 million of tax-exempt private-activity bond authority, from a $15 billion authorization Congress gave the DOT to help finance road and freight-transfer projects.

KABATA’s chief financial officer, Kevin Hemenway, told the agency’s board in October that it  has so far been unsuccessful in obtaining a TIFIA loan, according to minutes from the meeting. He added that the authority would be in a stronger position to obtain TIFIA financing once it obtained the record of decision.

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Transportation industry Alaska
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