Economy

CHICAGO — Kansas City, Mo.-based Children’s Mercy Hospital enters the market beginning today with a retail order period on its $180.7 million of new-money and refunding revenue bonds that will introduce fixed-rate bonds to the well-known hospital’s debt portfolio.

Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon announced the state would cut 700 positions, Medicaid payments, and school transportation funds to trim $204 million from the $23.7 billion budget for fiscal 2010.

SAN FRANCISCO — Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa last week proposed borrowing to speed construction on $20 billion of mass transit projects approved by Los Angeles County voters last year.

WASHINGTON — The Georgia Department of Transportation is poised to launch a public-private partnership initiative it hopes will encompass 17 projects, including a multimodal passenger terminal in Atlanta, connector highways, toll roads and privatized highway rest stops.

Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick Friday announced five members to serve on the board of the state's new transportation bonding authority, the Massachusetts Department of Transportation.

New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority will be looking across the pond for ideas on how to improve service and management and how to address its capital needs.

The Texas Department of Transportation is proposing $1.1 billion for the widening of heavily congested sections of Interstate 35 between Austin and Dallas using more than half of the so-called Proposition 12 bonds authorized by lawmakers.

The Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City will begin a retail order period tomorrow for $85 million of bonds secured by a Federal Housing Administration-insured mortgage.

The Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission Thursday evening re-filed its application to the Federal Highway Administration to implement tolls on Interstate 80.

St. Mary's Hospital in Passaic has until Nov. 6 to file a reorganization plan after the health care provider filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in early March.

CHICAGO — Minnesota’s largest not-for-profit health care provider, Allina Health System, enters the market next week with the first piece of its nearly $400 million new-money and refunding issue with a trifecta of upgrades in hand — a rarity for the hard-hit sector.

DALLAS — Amid a continuing plunge in revenues, transportation planners in the Phoenix area are cutting nearly $7 billion from a $16 billion freeway program financed through revenue bonds.

The $700 million of bonds to finance a professional basketball arena at the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn could be sold and the proceeds placed into escrow as legal challenges to the project are resolved, an official at the Empire State Development Corp. said yesterday.

The Oakland-San Francisco Bay Bridge, the Bay Area Toll Authority’s busiest bridge, was expected to reopen today after it was closed earlier in the week when five tons of recently replaced steel supports fell into traffic and damaged cars.

DALLAS — The Arizona Department of Transportation estimates it would have to fire up to 60% of its workforce, halt all non-emergency maintenance, and close all highway rest stops under a legislative plan to close a $2 billion budget shortfall.

Woman’s Hospital of Baton Rouge hopes to sell bonds soon so it can proceed with a revised hospital replacement project that it deferred earlier this year due to a slack credit market.

Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport officials announced Monday that the airport received $34 million in stimulus funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to help pay for construction of the new Maynard Holbrook Jackson Jr. International Terminal.

CHICAGO — Novi, Mich.-based Trinity Health Credit Group will enter the market today with $233 million of fixed-rate revenue bonds, followed by $102 million of variable-rate securities in two weeks to finance hospital projects in Indiana and Michigan.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey plans to competitively price $300 million of tax-exempt bonds today in what it expects to be its last bond offering of the year.

A second Erickson Retirement Community facility outside of Chicago is in default on its 2007 tax-exempt bonds after the nonprofit associated with it failed to make principal and interest payments due on Aug. 1 and Sept. 1.