The Brightline West high-speed rail project to link Southern California and Las Vegas still hasn't secured a federal Railroad Rehabilitation and Improvement Financing loan, but its officials say it has nonetheless made significant progress on the construction and financing fronts.
Company officials said during an investor call Friday afternoon they are working on parallel tracks to secure a $4 billion senior loan package from a banking consortium even as they work to finalize the agreement with the U.S. Department of Transportation and its Build America Bureau on a
The Build America Bureau is currently onboarding legal and technical advisors, a step that has contributed to a slight delay in a planned all-hands meeting on the RRIF loan, said Michael Reininger, a Brightline managing director and Brightline West board member.
The overall Brightline holding company, which runs an established passenger service in Florida, tasked Reininger with getting Brightline West off the ground as part of a January
Brightline
The company had announced in November it had
DesertXpress Enterprises LLC, which does business as Brightline West and is owned by Fortress Investment Group, plans to build and operate the first high-speed rail service in the U.S. as a privately owned all-electric service on a 218-mile route between Las Vegas and Rancho Cucamonga in the Los Angeles suburbs.
While the government is expected to seek "cost certainty," before approving the RRIF loan, the company believes this can be achieved without all final construction contracts being signed. Most significantly, the RRIF loan approval is not contingent upon the immediate closure of other financing components, though funding dispersal would require equity to be in place, said Ken Nicholson, a managing director at Fortress.
The existing bank groups are prepared to sign, but their funding is ultimately conditioned on the RRIF loan's execution, Nicholson said.
He also noted the encouraging growth of the private lending market, which has generated more interest in their project, including interest from one private equity lender large enough to replace the existing lending consortium, he said.
The progress across key construction areas over the past 28 days included the completion of key underground infrastructure and column structures, Reininger said. The first elevated decks are now in place and 1,300 lineal feet of drainage is finished, he said.
The design work is nearing completion on the vehicle maintenance facility with 90% of construction documents ready, Reininger said.
The engineering documents with the Nevada Department of Transportation are 70% complete, and NDOT has approved 15 contracts, he said.
Brightline executives will provide another update on the project at the end of March.
