Economy

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.

WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service is auditing $61.3 million of auction-rate securities issued in 2005 by the Coastal Bend Health Facilities Development Corp. of Corpus Christi, Tex.

Fitch Ratings downgraded the Monroe Clinic Inc.’s rating one notch to A-minus due to its plans to added debt load that will come early month with the issuance of $65 million of fixed-rate bonds.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority may delay payments to its pension fund if a New York State deficit-closing proposal reduces funds available to repay revenue anticipation notes, the MTA said yesterday.

SAN FRANCISCO — San Francisco International Airport last week used a tender offer to refinance as tax-exempt about $120 million of private-activity bond debt that had been subject to the alternative minimum tax, making it the first airport to successfully pull off the maneuver.

Standard & Poor’s last week withdrew its rating on North Philadelphia Health System’s 1997A bonds after downgrading the debt to CCC from AAA.

CHICAGO — The Missouri Highways and Transportation Commission enters the market beginning today with its second large financing in recent months as it sells $300 million of mostly taxable Build America Bonds, the final tranche of borrowing planned under a $2.2 billion road building program.

National Public Finance Guarantee Corp. is sharing what it knows about municipal bonds.

Senate transportation leaders are pushing for a six-month extension of programs that provide funding to states and metropolitan areas for highways, bridges, and other surface transportation projects, Environment and Public Works Committee chairwoman Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., told officials gathered in California over the weekend.

WASHINGTON — The public sector should provide 55% or 65% of high-speed rail costs through gasoline and other taxes, Richard Harnish, executive director of the Chicago-based Midwest High Speed Rail Association, said at a conference here Friday.