Build Northwest Center of Excellence
About Build Northwest
With the second round of RIA funding for 2024-2026, the Build Northwest (BNW) Center of Excellence will launch to expand the RIA’s transportation work program, which began in Washington, across all five PNWER states. BNW will serve as a resource for states and local communities to understand and innovatively finance regionally significant infrastructure projects.
BNW’s program and projects will be overseen by an advisory council of private sector leaders in the engineering, financial, transportation, and energy fields in partnership with the state legislative transportation committees of the five states. The BNW Council will communicate quarterly with the committee chairs and members on opportunities for projects to leverage public and private innovative finance and project delivery enhancements from industry partners.
Build Northwest Guiding Principles & Goals
Educate
Assist
Integrate
Convene
Educate: Establish a resource center to share best practices and promote understanding of infrastructure systems, federal financing mechanisms and public-private partnership investments
Assist: Identify opportunities to bundle projects and leverage private sector resources on Pacific Northwest corridors, gateways, border crossings and critical connections
Integrate: Promote integrated transportation and energy infrastructure planning to support an enhanced, smart and clean supply chain
Convene: Bring public and private sector partners together to develop multimodal investment strategies for freight mobility, supply chain optimization and passenger mobility
Projects & Initiatives
Legislator Outreach & Education
Many state legislators are unaware of how federal credit programs, such as TIFIA and RRIF, can accelerate infrastructure project delivery and subsequently enhance supply chains, economies and community connectivity. The Build Northwest Center of Excellence will develop and share educational and informational materials about federal credit programs and innovative finance with legislators and department of transportation staff in Alaska, Oregon, Idaho, Montana and Washington so they can better understand how to support infrastructure project delivery in their states.
Educational Workshops for Project Sponsors
Build Northwest will host educational workshops for project sponsors, municipalities, jurisdictions and Tribal nations in the five-state PNWER region so they can better understand how to leverage innovative financing to support infrastructure development. Workshops will focus on federal credit programs offered by the Build America Bureau, and will empower project sponsors to confidently navigate the addition of federal financing as a funding source.
Developing a Financing Work Plan for Alaska
Credit programs offered through the Build America Bureau, such as Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation (TIFIA) and Railroad Rehabilitation and Improvement Financing (RRIF), are often difficult to navigate for small jurisdictions and Tribal nations. Build Northwest will work with Alaska Municipal League to develop a TIFIA/RRIF work plan to assist communities in identifying, understanding and navigating best-fit funding solutions for their infrastructure projects.
Educational Technical Assistance Webinars
Technical assistance, also known as TA, is the process of providing targeted support to an organization or jurisdiction to build capacity for a specific project. Like the PNWER RIA for the Build America Bureau, there are many federal agencies that offer technical assistance to assist communities with navigating their programs.
Build Northwest will partner with other technical assistance providers to host public educational webinars. Information on upcoming webinars is available on our events page.
Build Northwest Advisory Council
The Build Northwest Center of Excellence is led by an Advisory Council of private sector engineering, finance, transportation and energy leaders, in partnership with the legislative transportation committees of the five northwest states. BNW is currently recruiting private sector leaders to join the council. If you are interested in joining this effort, please email Bruce Agnew, PNWER RIA director, at bruce.agnew@pnwer.org.
Innovative Financing | Bridging the Gap
The core mission of Build Northwest is to facilitate the development of infrastructure projects by empowering communities across the Pacific Northwest to identify, understand the navigate innovative federal financing opportunities and matching programs. As a USDOT Build America Bureau-funded demonstration program, the PNWER RIA serves as a resource for communities as they navigate federal financing solutions like those offered by the Bureau. Click below to explore the Bureau’s innovative federal financing mechanisms:
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The TIFIA loan program is designed to leverage federal resources and stimulate investments in transportation infrastructure by providing credit assistance to projects of regional or national significance.
What types of credit assistance are offered?
Direct Loans
Loan Guarantees
Lines of Credit
Who is an eligible applicant?
State governments
State infrastructure banks
Private firms
Special authorities
Local governments
Transportation improvement districts
Click here to learn more about TIFIA
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The RRIF program provides direct loans and loan guarantees up to $35 billion to finance the development of railroad infrastructure.
What types of credit assistance are offered?
Direct Loans
Loan Guarantees
Who is an eligible applicant?
State and local governments
Interstate compacts
Government sponsored authorities and corporations
Railroad
Limited option rail freight shippers that own or operate a plant or other facility
Joint ventures including at least one of the entities above
Click here to learn more about RRIF
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PABs are debt instruments offered by state or federal agencies to enable transportation projects to benefit from the lower financing costs of tax-exempt municipal bonds. PABs can be used alone or with TIFIA and RRIF financing.
Click here to learn more about PABs.
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