As Municipal Parking P3s Stutter, NJ Has a Chance to Buck that Trend

By Vince Calio

As infrastructure investors and parking operators cast their gaze across the Hudson, they’ll see that the New Jersey Transit (NJT) Corporation’s plans to privatize its commuter parking lots are facing some serious road blocks.

NJT’s System Parking Amenity and Capacity Enhancement Strategy program, or SPACES, would lease more than 37,000 parking spaces to a private concessionaire for the next 30-50 years, and raise much needed capital for NJT in the process. But deal sources are saying that NJT’s plans make some unreasonable demands of potential bidders.

And those bidders will be extra cautious in their assessment of the NJT project following the failure of municipal parking monetizations in Pittsburgh and Los Angeles. The idea of incurring transaction pursuit costs for a deal that might not happen will be fresh in their minds.

Details of the NJT project were sent to seven bidders late last year. By creating a P3 structure, New Jersey’s public transportation corporation hopes to make more money from an already large source of income that would represent its best opportunity of closing a USD100m budget gap. The deal would privatize parking at major rail and bus stations along the NJT line in Bergen, Essex and Monmouth counties. The winning concessionaire would operate parking facilities at 81 stations, although that number could change as the deal moves closer to being finalized.

While avoiding the fate of Pittsburgh and Los Angeles, NJT is hoping to follow the example set by the Chicago Parking Meters (CPM) project in 2008, for which Morgan Stanley paid the city of Chicago USD1.15bn in exchange for a 75-year concession of municipal street meter parking.

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Plus, do you know that InfraAmericas runs two major infrastructure finance conferences a year in New York, covering both new-build and M&A-style brownfield transactions? Our next conference is the US P3 Infrastructure Forum – Visit http://bit.ly/USP3OPR to find out about it.

This must-attend industry event, that attracts over 350 key public and private sector participants every year, is returning to New York City on June 14-15. It is the only event that brings elected officials, policymakers, state and local transportation agencies together with infrastructure investors, P3 developers and contractors, bond arrangers and financial advisory firms.

Now in its 7th year, this two-day conference, packed with networking opportunities, will identify those states that will drive US P3 deal flow in 2011 and in 2012, 13, 14 & 15 once new projects are approved. For more information, including speaker and program updates and to download the agenda, please visit the event’s website: http://bit.ly/USP3OPR.

Alternatively, if you would like to receive further details or register for the event at our special early-bird rate, please send an email to Kate Salkeld at ksalkeld@infraresearch.com, or call her on +44 (0)20 7786 9284. Please remember to quote your reference: USP3OPR.

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This release was published on openPR.