Title
Apply for the United States Department of Transportation Innovative Finance and Asset Concession (IFAC) Grant Opportunity for Federal Fiscal Years 2024 - 26, Build America Bureau (Ordinance S-52397) - Citywide
Description
Request to retroactively authorize the City Manager, or designee, to apply for, accept, and if awarded, enter into agreement(s) for disbursement of federal funding from the United States Department of Transportation (USDOT) through the Federal Fiscal Years (FFYs) 2024-26 Innovative Finance and Asset Concession (IFAC) Grant. If awarded, the funding will be used to initiate a planning grant. Further request to authorize the City Treasurer to accept, and the City Controller to disburse, all funds related to this item. Funding for this grant opportunity is available through the Build America Bureau. The total grant funds applied for will not exceed $1 million, with no local match.
Report
Summary
On August 13, 2025, the USDOT announced the IFAC Grant Notice of Funding Opportunity. The IFAC Grant aims to help public entities scan their existing assets to unlock their value and explore innovative financing, alternative delivery, and public-private partnership opportunities. A significant focus of the IFAC Grant is to identify existing assets that have the potential to provide additional public benefits through asset concessions. In January 2025, the City of Phoenix identified 13 bridges requiring replacement or rehabilitation due to structural deficiencies, functional obsolescence, or scour-critical conditions. This analysis did not consider life-cycle costs or economic impacts in the constrained annual maintenance budget of approximately $1.5 million.
The Bridge Asset Scan and Prioritization Project will build on this study to:
- Expand the bridge prioritization analysis to consider life-cycle costs, economic costs and benefits, federal requirement implications, and potential efficiencies created by bundling bridges in single procurement(s).
- Evaluate opportunities to address a broader range of asset needs by evaluating innovative construction methodologies and alternative delivery approaches.
- Conduct a market study, risk assessment, preliminary cost estimation, and additional technical evaluating as needed or shortlist bundled bridges to determine viability.
- Evaluate Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (TIFIA) eligibility and the potential use of TIFIA by the City and/or a private partner.
- Strengthen the department's capacity building and integrate lessons learned from national examples of bundled bridge procurements to support future public-private partnership opportunities, including developing public outreach and communication materials.
Under the program eligibility, the State of Arizona has up to $4 million dollars of funding opportunity available for this round since no funds were awarded to any local, county or state entity within Arizona in any previous IFAC awards.
The deadline for the grant application was Wednesday, October 1, 2025.
Financial Impact
The City requested $1 million in IFAC funding. There is no financial impact to the City, as a local agency match is not required.
Department
Responsible Department
This item is submitted by City Manager Jeffrey Barton and the Street Transportation Department.