By Lisa Broadt
December 16, 2016
TC Palm
The five brightly colored train cars and two locomotives that rolled through the Treasure Coast early Wednesday morning cost All Aboard Florida $83 million, according to financial information made public for the first time Thursday in court documents.
All Aboard Florida’s total price tag for its first five trains is $415 million, according to the documents sought by Martin and Indian River counties in their ongoing federal court case to block the passenger railroad.
In the documents, All Aboard Florida revealed additional details — also sought by the counties — about its new strategy to separately finance Phase 1 of its project, from Miami to West Palm Beach, and Phase 2, from West Palm Beach through the Treasure Coast and on to Orlando International Airport.
Those documents, however, revealed information that potentially could hurt the counties’ case, including that All Aboard Florida may be able to finance significant portions of its $3.1 billion project without tax-free bonds.
The project had the potential to cause irreparable environmental harm to the Treasure Coast, the counties argued.
Without the bonds, though, All Aboard Florida would be unable to finance its project, the counties argued, while petitioning the court to invalidate the bonds.
All Aboard Florida, meanwhile, asserted it could find alternate financing.
Over the past year and a half, as the court case dragged on and All Aboard Florida failed to sell its bonds, the counties’ position appeared to strengthen.
But early last month, the railroad revealed it planned to ditch its primary financing plan and instead pursue separate bond allocations of $600 million for the first phase, where an environmental review already is complete, and, later, $1.15 billion for the second phase.
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