Genting submits Us$770mil monorail bid in Miami

PETALING JAYA: The Genting group wants Miami-dade County to fund a Us$770mil (Rm3.35bil) monorail system linking the Miami mainland with South Beach, The Miami Herald has reported.

Genting Malaysia Bhd, via its wholly owned subsidiary Resorts World Miami LLC, undertakes the group’s operations in Miami within the US state of Florida.

According to The Miami Herald, the rail link would give Miami-dade County a sort of “Baylink” local transit system envisaged since Ronald Reagan was president.

The plan involves putting a transit station next to Genting’s planned waterfront casino, the US daily reported.

But there are financial hurdles. The proposal was made public on May 11.

According to the paper, Genting and partners would form a private group to build and operate the 6.44km Miami Beach Monorail. It would turn over fare revenue to MiamiDade County, in exchange for yearly payments from the county Us$59.4mil over 30 years.

The payment to a consortium that includes majority partner Meridiam would cover operating costs for the monorail trains and the developer’s construction costs with interest.

Investors would be paid back with profit over three decades. Meridiam was behind the Port of Miami Tunnel, an undersea tunnel in Miami, Florida.

The Miami Herald said that most of the upfront money to build the monorail would come from Us$693mil in private loans.

About Us$77mil would come in equity from Meridiam and a small part from Genting.

“Meridiam is contributing most of the equity dollars, nearly Us$74mil, and less than Us$4mil [is] coming from Genting.

The financial plan shows Meridiam and Genting making a 12% yearly return on their equity investments,” The Miami Herald reported.

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The monorail system would start on the mainland at a new Metromover station.

It would be built on property where Genting plans to build a casino complex under its Resorts World brand, if it can secure the changes in Florida gambling laws needed to bring the project to the waterfront.

If built, the three-car monorail trains would offer a five-minute ride over the Macarthur Causeway. The proposal involves charging a US$5 fare per trip, enough to generate about Us$4mil annually to offset required payments, the daily reported.

The monorail consortium was the lone bidder on what would be one of the priciest transit projects in the county since Metromover was launched in 1986, The Miami Herald reported.

Mayor of Miami-dade County Carlos Gimenez made reference to the lack of competing bids in a memo on May 11, before the monorail proposal became public.

In the memo, Gimenez said there were two other teams who cited time constraints prevented them from submitting bids.

According to the paper, Genting and partners had earlier submitted an initial monorail proposal but this was not made public.

In July 2019, the local authorities there decided to accelerate the timetable for the Beach transit corridor.

A month later in August, the county agreed to invite proposals for the Beach corridor, based on the first monorail proposal, the US daily newspaper reported.

Genting and partners, however, were not obligated to stick with its initial proposal, which included the use of Chinese-built trains to keep costs down.

While that Us$400mil project was described as costing the country just over US$10 mil a year, the new proposal which uses trains built by Canada’s Bombardier, would come at significantly higher costs.