Industries

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.

The Court of Federal Claims has rejected Wells Fargo & Co.’s attempt to claim a $115 million tax deduction stemming from 26 sale-in, lease-out transactions, 17 of which involved public transit agencies, saying that the deals lacked economic substance.

The Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission is working on a new $310 million bridge to replace the current Interstate 95/Scudder Falls Bridge that connects New Jersey and Pennsylvania and is more than 50 years old.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority should prioritize which services could be restored if the New York Legislature finds additional funding, a state lawmaker said at a hearing yesterday.

Lower-than-expected construction bids have led the Idaho Transportation Board to reduce its latest request for Garvee bond authority.

Standard & Poor’s Tuesday upgraded the long-term and underlying ratings of the Scripps Health hospital system to AA-minus from A-plus.

BRADENTON, Fla. — Miami-Dade County next week plans to offer $600 million of aviation revenue bonds to continue financing for a major capital improvement program at Miami International Airport that is nearing completion.

DALLAS — The funding gap for the Denver area’s FasTracks transit plan has grown to $2.5 billion — a $300 million increase since 2009 — even though the construction cost estimate has fallen by nearly the same amount, according to the Regional Transportation District.

WASHINGTON — The Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority yesterday announced a financing team for $250 million to $600 million of bonds it plans to sell in the spring to help finance the Dulles International Airport Metrorail extension.

CHICAGO — Cleveland-based MetroHealth System is expected to enter the market today with $75 million of taxable Build America Bonds and possibly another series of tax-exempt fixed-rate debt to finance capital projects.

Sean Connaughton, appointed by governor-elect Robert F. McDonnell to be secretary of transportation, will be jumping into his new position a month after the Virginia Department of Transportation lowered its revenue estimates for fiscal 2010.

DALLAS — A joint Kansas legislative committee has passed along two versions of a plan for financing the state’s next 10-year transportation effort to the Legislature, which will begin its 2010 session on Monday.

What do you get when you mix a protracted recession with a series of overly optimistic projections and a credit guarantee from a borderline insolvent bond insurer?

CHICAGO — Standard & Poor’s has upgraded 10 local borrowers that have issued debt through the Michigan Transportation Fund — boosting most of them to top AAA marks— primarily due to high debt-service coverage.

Moody’s Investors Service downgraded to Baa2 from Baa1 $8.95 million of debt issued on behalf of Memorial Healthcare, located in Shiawessee County between Lansing and Flint.