CHICAGO – August 23, 2016 – Attorneys with international law firm Greenberg Traurig, LLP represented a consortium of nine private placement investors who provided $660 million for the University of California, Merced’s campus expansion on the first ever higher education availability payment Public-Private Partnership (P3) project to be awarded in the United States. This $660 million 38-year financing was done through a private placement in which nine investors loaned money to Plenary Properties Merced (the developer of the UC Merced project) and was part of a $760 million financing package that will double the physical capacity of the UC Merced campus by 2020 (providing new academic and research space, 1,700 beds of student housing, recreation, dining and student life amenities to support projected enrollment growth from 6,700 current students to 10,000 students). In addition to the private placement, the Regents of the University of California will be providing $600 million of public-sector financing in the form of progress payments and project allowances over the course of the $1.3 billion construction project.
The UC Merced project is structured as an "availability-payment concession," a type of P3 with a single private developer responsible for design, construction, operation, maintenance and partial financing of all new facilities over the 38-year term of the contract. Plenary Properties Merced will be paid in installments over that time, and UC Merced will resume responsibility for maintenance at the end of the contract. UC Merced will own the buildings at all times.
The Greenberg Traurig team was led by shareholders Charles J. Kolin, David J. LaSota, Michael D. Robson, and Lorraine M. Tyson, and included associate Lea K. Rosenthal.
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