FDOT prolongs Outer Beltway decision

The Florida Department of Transportation has delayed indefinitely its choice of a private partner to build a $1.8 billion project to connect Interstate 10 with Interstate 95 on Jacksonville's Westside because of doubts of whether the contractor would be subject to property taxes.

The public company chosen to finance, design, build and maintain the road could be subject to hundreds of millions of dollars worth of property tax, meaning FDOT would have to foot the difference, said FDOT District 2 Secretary Charles Baldwin. The district was expected to narrow its choices from among four accepted bids by May 2.

Baldwin now hopes that the department's attorneys will have a better idea within the next several months whether the yet-to-be-determined private partner would be subject to property taxes. If they are, Baldwin said the cost of the project, which would be one of the department's first with a private partner, would have to be increased.

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The halt on choosing a private partnership won't stop FDOT's surveying and permitting process for the project. Construction on the 46.5 mile, four-lane toll road is expected to begin in 2010 and could be open as soon as 2012.

Baldwin said the FDOT's attorneys were initially confident that the private partner wouldn't likely be subject to property taxes, but they are now less so. There is no legal precedent on whether private companies are liable for property taxes once the government hands over the site.

Public-private partnerships are a way for the FDOT to expand infrastructure for a growing population and offset a decline in construction funding from fuel taxes and vehicle registration tax receipts.