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KUALA LUMPUR (May 15): The Genting Group wants Miami-Dade to fund a $ 770 million (RM3.35 billion) monorail system linking the Miami mainland to South Beach, an elevated rail system that would require around of $ 60 million a year in public payments, said the Miami Herald.
Genting Malaysia Bhd, through its wholly owned subsidiary Resorts World Miami LLC, conducts the group’s operations in Miami within the US state of Florida.
In a report on Tuesday, the Miami Herald He said the proposal released Monday would give Miami-Dade the kind of “Baylink” system that had been a local transit target since Ronald Reagen was the president of the United States.
“The details of the plan that would put a transit station next to the oceanfront casino planned by Genting also set financial obstacles to building it,” he said.
He added that the private group made up of Genting and its partners that would build and operate the four-mile (6.44km) “Miami Beach Monorail” would deliver the fee revenue to Miami-Dade, in exchange for annual payments from the US county. USA $ 59.4 million in 30 years.
The payment to a consortium that includes majority partner Meridiam, the company behind the PortMiami tunnel, would cover the operating costs of the monorail trains and the developer’s construction cost with interest, and would pay investors with profits for three decades.
“The monorail system would begin on the mainland at a new Metromover station built on the property where Genting plans to build a casino complex under its Resorts World brand, if it can secure the changes in Florida gambling laws necessary to bring the project to the coast where the Miami Herald once stopped, “he said.
According to the Miami HeraldLast July, the commissioners accepted Mayor Carlos Giménez’s recommendation to launch an accelerated schedule for the Beach transit corridor after Genting and his partners submitted an initial monorail proposal that had not been released.
In August, Miami-Dade agreed to invite proposals for the beach corridor based on the first monorail proposal that seems attractive enough to consider.
The process began when the county and Florida were paying millions to a consultant to study which mode of transit made the most sense to ease traffic between Miami and Miami Beach under the initiative of the 2016 SMART Plan. That study by consultancy Parsons ended in December and found that extending Metromover to South Beach would attract the majority of passengers.
“Genting and its partners were not required to stick to the initial proposal, which included trains built in China to keep costs down. While that $ 400 million project was described as a cost to Miami-Dade of just over US $ 10 million a year, the new proposal uses trains built by Bombardier of Canada at significantly higher cost.
“After criticism of the first monorail plan, Miami-Dade approved the rules banning the project’s Chinese trains, linking it to federal law with similar rules,” he said.
In addition, in the last monorail effort, the main financial backing was from Meridiam, which the proposal describes as the leader of the association. The firm also backed the PortMiami tunnel project, which was built with private funds under an agreement that made Meridiam and its partners operate in exchange for annual government payments.
the Miami Herald He said most of the initial money to build the monorail would come from $ 693 million in private loans. About $ 77 million would come in capital from Meridiam and a small part from Genting.
“Meridiam is contributing the majority of its own funds, almost US $ 74 million and less than US $ 4 million [is] coming from Genting. The financial plan shows that Meridiam and Genting earn an annual return of 12% on their capital investments.
He said Genting’s partners in the monorail projects include two lobbyists at the center of Giménez’s 2016 re-election bid: campaign manager Jesse Manzano Plaza and finance president Ralph García-Toledo.
Geminez, his wife. Lourdes and Audrey Edmonson, the president of the Country Commission who would vote on the contract, filmed a promotional video in early 2019, which made them pretend to get on the proposed monorail.
“However, Garcia-Toledo and Genting have not released the video, which the county declared a public record,” he added.
He added that the economic devastation unleashed by the Covid-19 emergency caused the country’s transit system to prepare for a sharp drop in the sales tax that finances transportation projects in Miami-Dade, along with a drop in taxes on the poverty subsidized by bus and train operations.
The monorail team has said it wanted state funds and contributions from Miami and Miami Beach to reduce the money that Miami-Dade taxpayers would have to pay for the monorail project.
The monorail group’s spokeswoman said: “The annual payment of nearly $ 60 million was tied to the terms Miami-Dade required for initial proposals and we expect the number to decrease once an optimal financial structure is finalized.”
