Public Private Partnerships

Bryant Miller Olive advises local governmental units, for-profit and not-for-profit organizations responsible for projects and federal government agencies financing projects involving public-private partnership (P3) initiatives to provide creative solutions when public resources are not sufficient to satisfy demand for public goods, or when the dynamics of a public project are enhanced by private enterprise.  The countless definitions of “P3 project” all share a basic theme: contractually allocating risks and rewards between the public sector and private sector at some or all of the points along the asset life cycle –– planning, designing, financing, constructing, operating, maintaining, and owning.

Bryant Miller Olive lawyers know how to reconcile the differing perspectives of the public and private sectors, which often pose a major risk to P3 projects. Bryant Miller Olive attorneys are intimately familiar with procurement and contracting strategies designed to guard the public trust, while attracting private investment. International experience coupled with local knowledge helps unify the P3 stakeholders: bankers, contractors, designers, developers, governments, investors, and operators.

Our P3 experience includes complex transportation projects, port facilities, convention centers, housing, public utilities, healthcare, water and sewer, education, stadiums, arenas, civic centers, prisons, public buildings, parking facilities, solid waste management facilities and electric generation and transmission facilities. Some highlights:

• Higher Education: P3 projects have included social infrastructure including student housing and dining facilities, classroom facilities, sports facilities and other related facilities for institutions in Florida, Texas and North Carolina.  A unique project included a classroom facility involving the development of a new state college campus that is shared with a state university.  Our project list includes start-up projects with 200 beds to major reconstruction projects with 2,200 beds.  We are currently working with three universities in the North Carolina System with major reconstruction projects involving updating their respective housing systems.  Other on-campus projects include arenas conference centers and hotels.  These projects include both debt financed and equity financed projects.
• Transportation.  Our representation of the Joint Project Office for the Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (“TIFIA”) program has included P3 financings to private concessionaire’s for the California Presidio Parkway Project for $149 million, the Virginia I-95 HOT/HOV Lanes Project for $300 million and the Texas Grand Parkway Project for $840 million.
• Local Governments:  We have negotiated on behalf of our local government clients a number of economic incentive agreements in order to support the development of commercial, retail, hotel, parking and residential improvements as part of economic redevelopment projects.

Representative P3 Transactions

• Pier Park: Served as lead counsel on the Pier Park development in Panama City Beach, Florida, negotiating a sophisticated P3 agreement that has delivered an extraordinary mixed use, retail, tourism and recreational venue. The developer achieved delivery of significant infrastructure sooner than it otherwise could have while the city received a high quality beachfront project delivered years ahead of when it otherwise could have.  This financing included the leveraging of public funds, tax increment financing and non ad valorem special assessments.
• University of South Florida P3 Project  Financing the redevelopment of 10 acres of the Tampa campus to include 1,900 beds in five buildings, a 15,000 square foot dining facility and a 19,000 square foot wellness center. Project costs were financed with common and preferred equity by the developer and its equity participants; ground lease provided for performance standards, termination rights, step-in rights, the establishment of hand back reserves and cash capture provisions to establish life cycle cost reserves late in the term of the ground lease.
• Texas Woman’s University P3 Project  Financing the construction of three residential halls containing approximately 872 beds and a 30,000 square foot dining facility on land leased by the University to a development partner.