Infrastructure Development and Project Finance

Client and Industry Challenges

Businesses and governmental entities face significant challenges in today’s evolving infrastructure landscape. Non-traditional financing methods may be needed to bring a project to fruition, yet the parties involved may lack the technical expertise to implement those methods. Performance-based contracting and life-cycle delivery methods may require some entities to take on more risk than usual. Problems and disputes along the way are inevitable.

Snell & Wilmer’s infrastructure development and project finance group provides comprehensive, integrated legal and transfer services for all facets of small and large-scale infrastructure projects, ranging from planning and inception, through disposition. We have experience in each of the traditional public-private partnership (P3) components: financing, design and development; building and construction; and operation and maintenance. Our team brings creative and innovative approaches to each effort, and has deep and broad experience in the wide variety of disciplines integral to these projects.

Areas of Service

We provide services to our clients in these and other areas:

Public finance and bonds
Capital formation and structured finance
Design and construction contracts
Public Private Partnerships (P3)
Governmental relations
Real Estate, Land use, zoning and entitlements
Eminent domain
Concessionaire and development agreements
Maintenance and operating agreements
Regulatory and environmental permitting
Site acquisition and entitlement
Structure and organization of corporate entities
Supply and off-take agreements
Tax-exempt, tax-increment and tax-credit financing
Dispute resolution and litigation

Clients We Serve

Our infrastructure clients are involved in energy, utilities, transmission, natural resources, brownfield redevelopments, water and wastewater, manufacturing, education, commercial real estate, transportation and transit-oriented development, affordable housing, administrative facilities and hospitals.
We represent a variety of clients in these areas, including concessionaires, lenders, developers, utilities, investors, public and private owners, Native American tribes, governmental and quasi-governmental entities, construction, engineering and program management firms.

Attorneys in our offices have assisted clients with projects across the country, from coast to coast, and around the world, including North America, Australia, Cameroon, China, Central and South America, Russia, and the United Kingdom.

Why Clients Select Us

Creative and Comprehensive Solutions: We recognize the need for innovative methods to fund, develop, deliver and operate capital-intensive projects, and we understand well the need to maximize the value of public capital assets through partnering of public entities with experienced private entities.

Experienced and Dedicated: Our attorneys have specific skill sets and industry experience that allow us to build a knowledgeable, connected and efficient team for your project. We offer real-world legal solutions that are tailored to meet every client’s individual needs. We can bring disputes to practical resolution and work closely with our clients to identify effective settlement strategies.

Experience

Design/Development (Including Operations and Maintenance)

Development of P3 University housing and classroom facilities
$220 million (est.) state/federal highway extension and widening project utilizing a public-private partnership structure
Development of transit-oriented development project, involving a mixed-use office/retail/parking development, and light rail and commuter rail
Planning and designing of master community and neighborhood village governing regimes and documentation for a new 500-acre master planned, mixed-use community involving special districts and urban renewal authorities
Redevelopment of a 4,000-acre former air force base into integrated mixed-use new community
Management and development agreements with a tribal entity involving the purchase and transfer of land for development of a casino/hotel project
Development of a large oil and gas gathering system, including pipeline, rail and EPC contracts, for an oil and gas field
Acquisition, leasing and development of college campus sites throughout the United States and globally

Building/Construction

Representation of pipeline companies in the planning, siting, permitting, acquisition, condemnation, construction, installation and operation
Agreement for plant site, water rights, air quality credits and permitting associated with construction of a 550-MW power plant
Development and construction of large hospital facility, including acquisition and entitlement work
Claims resolution for heavy rail urban transit system
Claims resolution for roads and bridges entering and exiting major international airport

Finance

Special district bond financing for infrastructure including highways, roads, utility, public improvements and related infrastructure for large new developments
Negotiated major public financing agreement among municipality, special district and adjacent developers regarding two major regional centers leveraging state and local public finance sources and vehicles
Venture capital financing for oil, shale and coal conversion process
Development, financing and construction of several domestic and international gold, silver and precious metals mines
Power purchase agreement for a utility-scale 280-MW solar thermal generation facility
Structured financing involving a combination of federal grants and loans, tax-increment financing, low income housing tax credit financings, new market tax credit financing, and private mezzanine and targeted financing for several mixed-use developments across the western United States