Economy

BRADENTON, Fla. — The $1.2 billion Port of Miami Tunnel project will undergo another procurement process, Florida’s Department of Transportation chief said late Wednesday.

Death and disease know no recession. Hospitals do.

The Internal Revenue Service is auditing $149.7 million of revenue bonds issued in 2005 by the Maryland Health and Higher Educational Facilities Authority.

WASHINGTON - A Chicago-area real estate company has proposed an unsolicited 60-year concession to operate the Port of Virginia that would give the state an up-front payment of $500 million and $8.9 billion over the life of the deal.

DALLAS - Kansas lawmakers on Tuesday approved a $13 billion state budget for fiscal 2010 that relies on spending cuts, fund adjustments, and $585 million in federal stimulus funds to eliminate an expected $680 million revenue shortfall next year.

State officials will still move ahead with plans to potentially merge the Massachusetts Health and Educational Facilities Authority with the Massachusetts Development Finance Agency despite the fact that state Sen. Marian Walsh Tuesday announced that she would relinquish her new role at MassHEFA.

WASHINGTON - Continuing care retirement communities face more rating downgrades than upgrades in 2009 because of limited access to capital, slower unit re-occupancy caused by falling real estate values, and significantly reduced liquidity due to losses on investments, Fitch Ratings said yesterday.

CHICAGO - Chicago will give the private consortium that wants to lease the city's Midway Airport for 99 years for an up-front payment of $2.5 billion up to an additional six months to put its financing scheme together.

After a seven-year hiatus from bonding, the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey today plans to sell $253 million of revenue refunding bonds with a special "lockbox" structure to secure debt service payments.

CHICAGO - Ohio lawmakers were poised to vote late yesterday on a $9.6 billion, two-year state transportation budget that would include a new bond program as well as expanded authority for the state to enter into public-private partnerships to raise revenue.

SAN FRANCISCO - Transportation projects are in front of the line as California disburses the larger than expected proceeds of last week's general obligation bond sale.

Standard & Poor’s last week revised its outlook to stable from positive on the A rating it gives Little Company of Mary Hospital and Health Care Centers.

A state legislative panel approved a request from the Ohio Department of Transportation to set aside $450,000 in funding to study the cost of setting up passenger rail service among the state’s major cities.

Wisconsin’s 145 hospitals have a $22 billion annual impact on the state’s economy and employ 100,000, according to a new study from the University of Wisconsin-Extension and the Wisconsin Hospital Association.

DALLAS - The Oklahoma Transportation Commission on Monday awarded $228.4 million of construction contracts financed by money the state will receive from the $787 billion federal infrastructure stimulus plan.

DALLAS - Development of a $1.5 billion DFW Connector project is expected to begin this year to funnel traffic to Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport within five years.

J. Randolph "Randy" Babbitt, a longtime pilot and aviation consultant, will be nominated by President Obama to be the new chief of the Federal Aviation Administration under the Department of Transportation, the White House said Friday.

Voters in Medina County in South Texas will go to the polls at a special election on June 16 to establish a hospital district. If approved, the district could issue bonds supported by a levy of up to 10 cents per $100 of assessed property value to support Medina Regional Hospital.

WASHINGTON - The airport sector's troubled credit outlook will continue into 2010, and airport issuers' will likely experience more ratings downgrades and negative outlook actions during that time, Fitch Ratings warned in a report yesterday. However, it said the downgrades probably won't be worse than one or two notches.

The Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority plans to come to market tomorrow with $163 million of variable-rate airport system revenue bonds backed by a standby bond purchase agreement from Landesbank Baden-Wurttemberg.