The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) is set to take back ownership of the State Highway 288 tollway, one of the state’s most expensive privately built toll roads, which connects Houston to its southern suburbs. This action will terminate a 52-year agreement, originally set to end in 2068, for the Blueridge Transportation Group (BTG) to build and operate the tollway—a 10-mile stretch running from an intersection just south of downtown Houston to the Brazoria/Harris County line—that was built in the median of the publicly owned State Highway 288.
The buyback comes with a hefty price tag.
BTG, a consortium of international private infrastructure development firms, paid up-front for about a third of the billion-dollar tollway construction project, with the remaining two-thirds coming primarily through federal and state-backed debt. TxDOT is exercising a right to retake the tollway enshrined in the original agreement, but doing so requires paying BTG some $1.7 billion—on top of what the firms already raked in through tolls, construction contracts and selling shares in the project. The money from TxDOT will more than cover the $650 million debt that BTG still owes.
