The City Council is expected to approve Plenary Edgemoor Civic Partners (PECP) as preferred bidder to design, build, finance, operate and maintain the Long Beach Civic Center Project in California.
Also to be confirmed is the agreement between the council and the Port of Long Beach Harbor Commission to jointly participate in the development. The Harbor Commission will decide on whether to participate in the project on Monday.
According to the city’s advisor, Arup, PECP had a stronger technical design for both the port-in and port-out designs and a financial proposal that is sufficient to meet the financing needs of the port-in project.
The council has also been asked to extend Arup’s mandate for an additional five years and for a total value of just over $4m.
Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton is to be approved as legal advisor for a term of five years at a cost of $1.9m. A $450,000 financial advisory contract will be brought to the council at a later date.
A financial model for the project has also been put forward with the P3 structure wrapped around conventional tax-exempt financing. The primary financing is to be provided by a city-created non-profit company that will issue debt through conventional tax-exempt bonds. This will provide approx. 81% of the financing, approximately $373m.
The second financing component will also originate from the same non-profit company, which will issue subordinate bonds to be purchased by the project team as equity in the project. This type of equity funding provides approximately $50m (11%) of the main funding sources. The third and final component is cash from the sale of land which is expected to provide $37m (8%) of the required funding.
A preferred bidder has now been chosen for the scheme.