Economy

Miami commissioners late last week approved the sale of $92 million of bonds to build parking facilities for the Florida Marlins’ new baseball stadium, which is under construction.

Detroit businessman Manuel Maroun, who owns the only bridge spanning the busy trade route between Detroit and Canada, has bought a piece of land that could complicate a government plan to build a second bridge across the river.

This week’s largest financings include deals in the health care, transportation, and environmental sectors that are expected to price as part of an estimated $5.44 billion in volume, according to Ipreo LLC and The Bond Buyer.

New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority will begin consolidating internal departments and maximizing its resources to produce savings and make the system more efficient, agency chairman and chief executive officer Jay Walder announced Friday.

CHICAGO — The Illinois Finance Authority gave preliminary approval this week to the Seneca I-80 Railport Development LLC’s proposed $576 million issue. The move advances development efforts for the proposed freight-transfer facility that is seeking an allocation of tax-exempt, private activity bonding under the federal government’s $15 billion pilot program.

WASHINGTON — More than $200 million of toll revenue bonds issued by the Connector 2000 Association Inc. for a 16-mile toll road in Greenville County, S.C., defaulted on Jan. 1, in what sources said is the first public-private partnership default in the state.

SAN FRANCISCO — The Las Vegas Monorail Co., which has more than $600 million of municipal bonds outstanding, sought Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Wednesday.

The Bay Area Toll Authority’s oversight committee on Wednesday approved toll hikes on the seven state owned toll bridges in the San Francisco Area. The toll hikes must now be approved by the Oakland-based agency’s full board.

DALLAS — Woman’s Hospital Foundation of Baton Rouge, La., will revive a halted replacement project with the proceeds from next week’s negotiated sale of $244 million of hospital revenue bonds and $100 million of Gulf Opportunity Zone bonds.

The Obama administration is working with Congress on a multi-year transportation bill that it expects will cost between $400 billion to $500 billion, Transportation Department Secretary Ray LaHood said at a conference here yesterday.

New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority plans to repeat a novel approach to accessing low rates at a time when liquidity costs makes traditional variable-rate financing pricey.

The Virginia Small Business Financing Authority today expects to issue $293 million of new-money and refunding bonds on behalf of Sentara Healthcare, the main health care provider for east Virginia and northeastern North Carolina.

CHICAGO — Faced with rising debt service costs and sagging tourism revenues, the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority will ask Illinois lawmakers who return to work today for the power to restructure its debt and extend a state debt-service subsidy.

The expiration two years ago of the law allowing the 116 industrial development agencies in New York to sell bonds on behalf of nonprofits is changing the landscape for borrowers and issuers.

Fitch Ratings revised its outlook to negative and affirmed its BBB-minus rating on Friendship Village of Columbus, Ohio Inc., a continuing care retirement community facility.

A committee of the Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Port Authority last week recommended selling $30 million of tax-exempt bonds to jump-start a privately run $278 million development project along the Cuyahoga River.

Chicago Mayor Richard Daley last week replaced his chief of staff Paul Volpe with Raymond Orozco, who had led the Office of Emergency Management and Communications. Volpe will become budget director of the Chicago Transit Authority.

DALLAS — The Port of Houston Authority of Harris County will take advantage of its highly rated credit tomorrow by offering $327 million of refunding bonds, a deal that comes amid major expansion plans for one of the nation’s busiest cargo and petro-chemical facilities.

CHICAGO — Ohio State University today will begin taking retail orders on a refunding issue that will range in size from $154 million to $274 million in order to eliminate some of the school’s variable-rate debt and achieve savings on its existing fixed-rate bonds.

WASHINGTON — Former U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary E. Peters joined a push by House lawmakers yesterday to revamp the federal transportation funding system, which currently has “donor states” such as Texas paying more into the federal highway trust fund than they get back.