FDOT held an industry forum with potential private sector investors in December 2005 to follow up on earlier individual conversations and elicit their input on strategies for procuring the tunnel as a P3 project. The industry forum confirmed that potential investors would not be interested in pursuing the project without the necessary environmental approvals and permits being in place. Much of the session focused on risk allocation and confirmed that if the project sponsor were to assign all the risk of the project to a private partner it would need to pay for it up front. The participants in the industry forum were particularly concerned about the geological risk associated with constructing a large-diameter bored tunnel and stated that they would prefer not to include the associated costs in their bids. Ultimately FDOT decided to establish a geological risk contingency fund that could be tapped if a risk event occurred. This mechanism would enable bidders to remove the cost provisions for potential geological risks from their cost estimates, thereby streamlining costs and encouraging greater competition. As a further incentive to ensure that tunnel construction would be of the highest quality, FDOT was also keen to include the long-term operation and maintenance of the tunnel in the P3 procurement.
In February 2006 FDOT issued a Request for Qualifications (RFQ) for a DBFOM concession, and a Request for Proposal (RFP) to shortlisted proposers in November 2006. In May 2007, FDOT announced its intent to award the concession to MAT, comprised of the Australian investment firm Babcock and Brown and the French construction firm Bouygues, a subsidiary of which would serve as the lead contractor on the project. Once funding commitments from the state, county, and city partners were finalized, a formal award was made in February 2008. However, financing for the project soon became caught up in the market turmoil of that year, which would see the failure of both Babcock and Brown and Lehman Brothers, its underwriter for the project. In late 2008, Meridiam replaced Babcock and Brown as the primary equity partner in the concession.
During this period, it was also recognized that long-term credit assistance from the federal Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (TIFIA) program would be crucial in financing the project. TIFIA provides improved access to capital markets, flexible repayment terms and favorable interest rates credit to projects with dedicated revenue sources. However, in order to become eligible for this assistance, the Port of Miami Tunnel had to go through a process of "federalization" to ensure that all Federal protocols-such as the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) approvals, Buy America Act requirements for the use of domestically produced materials, and Davis-Bacon prevailing wage requirements-would be met. Since FDOT had initially planned to finance the project using state and local revenue sources exclusively it had not engaged FHWA in the necessary reviews prior to that time. This process was initiated in mid-2008 and was completed by the fall of 2009.