The Broomfield City Council will vote tonight on an agreement aimed at promoting an extension of the Northwest Parkway toll road through Jefferson County to Interstate 70.
It would be a key step toward the 99-year, $603 million lease of the toll road to a foreign-owned consortium.
If Broomfield council members do not approve the pact that calls for extending the Northwest Parkway first through the city to Colorado 128 near Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport – and possibly later to I-70 – then the lease deal between the toll road authority and the consortium “will likely not close,” according to Broomfield city documents.
Final terms of the lease deal between the private toll-road group, led by the Portuguese firm Brisa Auto-Estradas, and the parkway are to be announced Wednesday.
Broomfield’s documents say the transaction calls for Brisa and its partners to pay $503 million to retire the Northwest Parkway’s current bonds and contribute $60 million for the extension of the toll road through the city’s FlatIron Crossing and Interlocken areas to highway 128.
The group would also pledge another $40 million in escrow “to be paid if the Northwest Parkway is connected to a point somewhere south of 64th Avenue in Jefferson County” prior to 2020.
The agreement between Broomfield and the Northwest Parkway was drafted to give Brisa “some comfort,” Broomfield’s documents say, that the city and toll road “will use their best efforts to see that the missing segment to highway 93 is completed, and all the way to I-70 if possible.”
A toll-road extension, first to Colorado 93 near Golden, and then possibly to I-70, has been considered by highway planners in recent years as part of an environmental study of the so-called Northwest Corridor.
The study has been controversial, especially in Golden, where city officials and residents say projected traffic demand in the area will not support the toll road extension to highway 93 or I-70.
“Nobody has asked, ‘Does anybody really want to ride on this road?’ particularly with the tolls people already are paying on the Northwest Parkway,” said Golden City Manager Mike Bestor.
Bestor added that when it comes to a possible toll-road extension through Jefferson County: “I can tell you, it’s not coming through Golden.”
