John Hennessy III,
P.E.
Seven months after hurricanes Harvey and Irma wreaked catastrophic damages in parts of Texas and Florida, leaving $175 billion in damages in their wake, help is on the way. Much-needed federal disaster relief dollars from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) should reach public officials in Gulf Coast counties by the end of this month.
View this complete post...Construction firms interested in new business opportunities need only to look at where the disasters occurred in 2017. But successful bidders will be companies that understand the importance of offering construction services with built-in resiliency. That’s the value proposition public officials are seeking in today’s marketplace.
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2017 was, by many accounts, a turbulent year. Infrastructure was no exception.
Whether due to new political paradigms, unprecedented natural disasters or new funding opportunities, American infrastructure faced a wide range of challenges throughout the year. Here, we recount some of the key infra topics that shaped discussion–and action–in 2017.
View this complete post...Public officials in states that have been cash-strapped for the last number of years have already exhausted internal creativity and innovation. There are just so many ways to do “more with less” and most say they have no new ideas left. In states that enacted fee and tax increases, the total net result was only $9.9 billion in additional revenue. Now lawmakers and budget gurus must explore alternative funding options. That’s because some projects and budget items simply cannot be overlooked, decreased or eliminated.
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Over the last decade, it has become increasingly clear that America’s infrastructure requires a significant upgrade. Roads, highways, bridges and tunnels have decayed and deteriorated—sometimes to the point of catastrophic failure. Yet, with tax dollars limited and funding for projects largely declining, finding a way out of the mess has been extraordinarily difficult.
“It has put the spotlight on public-private partnerships,” states Lee Weintraub, chair of public-private partnerships and vice chair of construction, law and litigation at Becker & Poliakoff.
View this complete post...Written by Mary Scott Nabers President and CEO, Strategic Partnerships Inc. Startup companies of all types are hot topics today. They excite investors because some offer great revenue potential. The media loves to write about them and economic development organizations try to attract them because of the jobs they create. Small businesses are the backbone […]
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Our systems and services in infrastructure are pretty compromised right now, especially in areas that have been subject to extreme weather events. But even if they haven’t, we’ve got a lot of infrastructure that, frankly, is falling apart. We haven’t done a good job of maintaining it, and we don’t have enough resources to maintain or resuscitate that infrastructure. So the reason this is important is because it creates a path for being able to address that issue. To create the type of infrastructure that we need to provide energy security, safe drinking water, reliable transportation, all the services and needs we have from our day to day infrastructure that we aren’t receiving right now through our public sector.
View this complete post...Just a week ago, the president started walking back his often-stated commitment to use $200 billion in federal funding to leverage another $800 billion in private capital and other non-federal funds for an infrastructure plan. Word from the Beltway this week is that a new “outline of principles” for an infrastructure plan will be forthcoming from the Trump administration, possibly in the next week or so.
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Because P3s cover a broad range of innovative contracting, project delivery and financing arrangements, a singular definition is difficult to establish. P3s take various forms based on the type of infrastructure involved and level of risk sharing sought by the public sector. Key characteristics of P3s, delineating them from typical arrangements between the public and private sectors, include the transfer of risk from the public sector to the private sector, the marrying of multiple steps of the procurement lifecycle and the shifting of some public sector responsibilities to the private sector.
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Created three years ago and finally funded this year, the Environmental Protection Agency’s Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (WIFIA) program may soon announce the first round of funding for water infrastructure projects. The agency has $1.5 billion in available funds and it is all designated for water projects.
The EPA announced that 12 of the 43 public entities submitting letters of interest for project funding from the WIFIA program have been approved. These applicants may now move through the program and apply for low-interest loans.
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