A team of companies from Portugal and Brazil have agreed to lease the financially distressed Northwest Parkway toll road for 99 years in a deal valued at $603 million.
The transaction buys out the roughly $503 million in bond debt carried by the toll highway and includes an additional $60 million that the companies will contribute for the extension of the road to Colorado 128, near the Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport, formerly Jefferson County Airport, said parkway executive director Steve Hogan.
About nine miles of the parkway are tolled now and there are provisions to extend it an additional 2.3 miles across U.S. 36 to 128.
But Hogan said the firms leasing the parkway still must settle issues with Broomfield, which operates streets in the Interlocken and FlatIron areas, before any extension of the toll road can occur.
The lease deal, which is scheduled to close by Aug. 31, includes an additional $40 million that Portugal’s Brisa Auto-Estradas and Brazil’s Companhia de Concessoes Rodoviarias will put into an interest-bearing escrow account for release to Broomfield, Lafayette and Weld County when the toll road extension to highway 128 is completed, Hogan said.
The three jurisdictions are voting members of the Northwest Parkway board of directors.
Another $30 million in tollway debt owed to Broomfield, a special district in the area and for open space purchases will be paid out of reserves once the deal closes, Hogan added.
In a conference call with European investment analysts, Brisa chief financial officer Joao Azevedo Coutinho was asked if his team has any “preferential rights” to complete the beltway around the northwest quadrant of the Denver metro area, possibly with 15 miles of additional toll highway.
“We believe we’ve established a strong relationship, which allows us to believe that we will be in a very good position to (be in for) our bid for the next 15 miles,” Coutinho said in a transcript of the conference call.
The city of Golden has been fighting the attempt to complete the beltway and recently released a study showing tolls would not pay for construction of the road — the so-called Northwest Corridor.
Hogan said the parkway’s deal with Brisa and its Brazilian partner offers “no promises” that they will be able to extend the tollway past highway 128.
Staff writer Jeffrey Leib can be reached at 303-954-1645 or jleib@denverpost.com.
