http://www.miamiherald.com/news/business/real-estate-news/article161031124.html
Is this a train with a supporting real estate development?
or…
Is this a real estate deal with supporting train?
Yes. Let’s put it another way: would you build a high-rise without an elevator or would you build an elevator without a high-rise?
Nothing new here. Simply copying the plan developed by the New York Central in New York’s grand Central Terminal updated to 2017.
When my parents moved to a house in the country, I asked, "Does having a car make living in the country possible or does living in the country make having a car necessary?"Dad said, “Either way.” Seems like the same thing here.
The pendulum swings. I believe this was fairly common over a century and a half ago.
in a talk given by someone fairly high u in Rail America said it was a real estate ploy!
…which is why transportation infrastructure, on it’s own, never “makes money”. The benefits all wind up in other people’s pockets.
If anybody saw “The Founder”, it wasn’t until a money guy explained to Ray Kroc that he wasn’t in the restaurant franchise business (that was losing money), he should be in the real estate leasing business. Buy the land and lease it to franchisees.
It has always been a real estate development that needs a train to make the real estate viable for development. This was stated by the real estate arm of FEC when they were all part of the same company and began the saga. The Real Estate arm has been ‘spun off’ as it’s own company and the rail road portion of FEC has been sold to Grupo Mexico. At this time ‘Brightline’ is on its own financially to the best of my knowledge.
The nimbys are starting to see handwriting on wall. $6.0 M spent on fighting the RR could have been better spent on building a passenger platform(s) for a few trains a day ?
Florida East Coast Industries recently sold Florida East Coast Railway to Grupo Mexico, a deal that was finalized two days ago. FECR was a smaller holding compared to what FECI retained: Flager (real estate) and Flager Global Logistics (supply chain management). And then there is their newest holding: All Aboard Florida.
And the pioneering western railroads made money off of land grants, land that suddenly became valuable because of the railroad.
Right now the built part of the Brightline just connects their 3 real estate developments betweem Miami and WPB. With no identified real estate development of theirs in Orlando, I am skeptical thay they will ever build beyond WPB.
They also got to issue tax-exempt, low interest, gov’t. guaranteed bonds.