Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission borrows $430M to build new Scudder Falls Bridge

The Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission secured more than $430 million in bond money on Tuesday to finance the Scudder Falls Bridge replacement project. The structure carries Interstate 95 over the Delaware River between Lower Makefield and Ewing in Mercer County, New Jersey.

Skip Garlits, of Yardley, rides his bicycle under the part of the Scudder Falls Bridge that crosses over the Delaware Canal and its adjacent towpath in Lower Makefield on Wednesday, Feb.15, 2017. The bridge carries Interstate 95 over the Delaware River between Lower Makefield and Ewing in Mercer County, New Jersey.

The Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission borrowed just more than $430 million during a bond sale this week to build a new, dual-span Scudder Falls Bridge to carry Interstate 95 back and forth between Lower Makefield and Ewing, New Jersey.

An underwriting group of nine investment banking firms, led by Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Siebert Cisnerows Shank & Co. LLC, marketed the 30-year bonds during the Tuesday sale, DRJTBC spokesman Joseph Donnelly said. Many different institutional investors, investment bankers and trust managers bought the $430,250,000 in bonds, he said.

"Bonds will bear interest rates ranging from 1.4 percent to 5 percent, with yields ranging from 1.4 percent in 2020 to 4.04 percent in 2047," Donnelly said. "The overall bond yield is 3.69 percent."

More than $3 million worth of what was borrowed during the bond sale will be used to pay the underwriting fees to legal and financial advisers who handled the transaction, the spokesman said.

Joe Resta, the commission's executive director, said the sale generated a lot of interest, despite a declining bond market.

"The commission received orders from investors totaling approximately $2.8 billion, or about 6.4 times the amount of bonds offered," Resta said on Wednesday. "All of the parties involved with the sale consider it a great success and an acknowledgement of the project’s viability and the commission’s strong financial metrics, which made this an excellent credit that investors were willing to invest in."

The commission wants to build the new bridge to replace the original four-lane Scudder Falls Bridge, which opened in 1961 but is now considered functionally obsolete, DRJTBC representatives said. As of 2015, the bridge carried more than 59,000 vehicles per day, an amount greater than intended for it to handle when the structure opened almost 60 years ago.

The new bridge, designed to reduce congestion and increase capacity, will have six lanes to carry traffic over the bridge and three auxiliary lanes for traffic to merge on and off of it. In addition to the actual bridge, the project also will include road widening and the construction of a pedestrian/bicycle walkway over the river. The improvement site will measure 4.4-miles long and run between state Route 332 at the Yardley/Newtown interchange in Lower Makefield and the County Route 579/Bear Tavern Road interchange in Mercer County.

The commission hired the Pittsburgh-based Trumbull Corporation in January to oversee the estimated four-year project. The first part of the project, expected to take two years to complete, will involve the construction of the southbound side of the bridge.

Once it's completed, the bridge commission will start using an all-electronic toll collection system to charge motorists for using the new span while the northbound side of the structure is under construction.

Toll revenue from the new bridge and other tolls collected by the commission will be used to pay about $29.8 million per year in debt service on the bonds through 2047, Donnelly said. The first payment will be due in July.

Construction activities at the site could begin in the spring, Donnelly said.

Source: Bucks County Courier Times