The Northwest Parkway’s board of directors has selected a team of companies from Portugal and Brazil as the winner in a bid to operate the financially troubled toll road under a long-term leasing arrangement.
Owners of the 11-mile highway, which links the E-470 toll road with U.S. 36, had solicited bids from 11 investment firms and toll-road operators.
The team of Brisa Auto-Estradas de Portugal S.A. and Companhia de Concessões Rodoviarias, of São Paulo, Brazil, was selected for exclusive talks with Northwest Parkway officials on a leasing agreement in part because of the companies’ “very strong service component,” said parkway Executive Director Steve Hogan.
“They are one of the largest toll-road operators in Europe,” Hogan said, adding that the parties will negotiate financial terms of the deal over the next 30 days.
With toll revenues lagging original projections, Northwest Parkway officials began the search last year for private investors who might have a longer investment horizon and be able to weather the road’s slower-than-expected move to financial stability.
Hogan said the parkway, which is owned by Broomfield, Lafayette and Weld County, still is “on track” for a leasing arrangement that would retire about $416 million in bond debt and transfer financial risk to the private sector bidding team.
Foreign-owned toll-road operators recently completed deals to operate the Chicago Skyway toll road and Indiana Toll Road under long-term lease arrangements worth billions of dollars to Chicago and Indiana.
Currently, New Jersey and Pennsylvania are exploring deals under which their highly traveled turnpikes would be leased to private operators.
Governments have discovered that they can get billions of dollars in payments for other road construction and maintenance from their busy toll roads, which offer private investors a steady source of income over many years.
The Northwest Parkway’s leasing model is different from established toll roads because it does not yet have a robust flow of cash or the dense development in its corridor that would increase use of its toll lanes.
Staff writer Jeffrey Leib can be reached at 303-954-1645 or jleib@denverpost.com.
