Project Profile: Conroy Road Bridge

Orlando, Florida

City of Orlando, Orange County, Florida Department of Transportation, Millenia project development group

Bridge

The Conroy Road Bridge and approach ramps are located just west of the City of Orlando where it crosses I-4. The bridge and ramps provide accessibility to a 400+ acre parcel situated on the east side of I-4 that contains the Mall at Millenia and other commercial development, including retail space and an office park. The City of Orlando, Orange County, FDOT, and the development group for the Millenia project developed the project through a public-private partnership.

This partnership used Tax Increment Financing (TIF) as a performance-based approach to link payment for the transportation improvements with the resulting economic development. The arrangement enabled the city and county to finance most of the transportation infrastructure through a Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) district that served as the vehicle for issuing tax-exempt bonds to advance funding for the project.

The Millenia project development group agreed to have the site and building developers repay the city for debt service associated with the bridge project bonds through an annual special assessment district fee, which was fixed regardless of the level of actual development, plus a transportation impact fee based on the level of development under permit to be built.

$28 million

FDOT loan - $5 million

CDA district TIF revenue bonds - $23 million

Design-bid-build

Forbes Company of Southfield, Michigan and Taubman Centers, Inc. of Bloomfield Hills, Michigan (Millenia project development group)

Not available

Bondholders

Designed and constructed between 1998 and 2000.

Closed

• Orange County agreed to have the City of Orlando annex the site and zone it for the proposed type and level of development so that the CRA district could be formed to serve as the vehicle for issuing tax-exempt bonds for the project.
• Since Orange County collects property taxes from all property in the county, whether unincorporated or incorporated, this arrangement enhanced the property tax proceeds from the site since both the county and city applied their respective millage rates to the same site.
• FDOT provided a $5 million loan to the project to initiate implementation and managed the design and construction of the Conroy Road diamond interchange at I-4.
• The development group agreed to a complex financial plan that committed to paying most of the costs associated with the required transportation infrastructure improvements regardless of the actual level of development that occurred, either through annual fees or credits based on incremental property taxes generated by the development.
• With the city using the bonding authority of the CDA district to advance most of the funding, it accelerated the project by 10 to 15 years relative to the timeline in its regional transportation plan. This reduced the potential for increases in material costs while taking advantage of favorable municipal bond rates.
• Within five years, the assessed value of the site rose from $6.5 million to over $250 million. The increase in city and county property taxes resulting from development exceeded the annual debt service on the project by 15 percent within four years, with continued growth assured to repay the full debt service on the CDA district bonds and the FDOT loan.

City of Orlando Community Redevelopment Agency

Case Studies of Transportation Public-Private Partnerships in the U.S. (see p.3-124)

Not available