Printable brief

Everything about this project in one document, ready to print or send: the summary first, the working after.

Real project10 published · 5 derived5 assumptions

Summary

Gulf Breeze Highway 98 utility undergrounding (CRA-financed)

Evidence incompleteUnderground US 98 (as built) vs Keep overhead (status quo)

Can it repay what it borrows?On paper; not settledIn the tightest year, the revenue pledged to the loan covers its payments 2.33× over (the test used here is 1.25×). Not settled yet: 5 inputs are assumptions. Coverage counts all of Gulf Breeze CRA tax increment; the agency's other spending from it is not netted out. 1 legal question (who may do this, or what the law allows) is still open. The pledged revenue may end by law after 2039, with 2 years of payments still due, unless it is continued; with nothing else pledged, coverage in those years would be 0×.
Is it fully paid for?Yes$7.5M of cost is matched by funding that is confirmed.
Is it worth it to the public?UnknownNo one has published a dollar estimate of the public benefits (3 benefits are described but not measured).

What we don’t know yet

CRA life covers the loan term
The CRA was created in December 1989. Under s. 163.3755(1), F.S., a CRA that existed on 1 October 2019 ends on its charter date or on 30 September 2039, whichever is earlier, unless the city or county that created it votes by majority to continue it. The carve-out in s. 163.3755(2)(a) covers only bonds outstanding on 1 October 2019; this loan was approved later. The loan runs to about FY2041. No continuation vote or charter date was found.
Loan structure is our assumption
Actual payments were $632,682 (FY23), $639,096 (FY24) and $645,192 budgeted (FY25), rising slightly; a level payment of the modelled $10,298,762 at 2.10% over 19 years is $662,947. The actual amortization schedule was not published.
Coverage covenant is our assumption
The loan covenant was not published.
Operating cost to the CRA is our assumption
FPL owns and maintains the facilities; any streetlight charges to the city were not published.
Useful life is our assumption
Used only for the residual value in the public benefit-cost view.
Project limits on the map is our assumption
The city did not publish project limits.

Appendix: the working

The same project in each of the separate ledgers Epomena keeps, so costs, benefits and transfers are never added together.

Independent ledgers

Ledger	Scope	Status	Result
Municipal fiscal	Tax base, public capital, relevant public services	Inputs pending	No parcels entered
Utility enterprise (A)	Marginal costs, loads, lifecycle revenues, debt	Provisional	Owner's own cash, present value −$6.8M (its revenue against its costs; not a measure of public value); tightest year covers loan payments 2.33×
Public benefit-cost (B)	Resource costs vs evidence-backed benefits	Evidence incomplete	No benefit has a dollar estimate, so only costs are counted (−$5.2M). That is not a net loss: the benefits are unmeasured, not zero.
Sources & uses (C)	Commitments, eligibility, unmet need	Counting ≥ confirmed	Uses $7.5M; gap $0
Health and environmental	Exposure, water use, flood pathways	Screening only	0 benefits described, not measured; no dollars assigned
Distributional and policy	New versus existing user burdens	Policy choice	See Rate Lab; cross-subsidies must be explicit

Who pays, who benefits, and when

The same numbers as the rest of the brief, sorted by who pays and who gains.

Party	Role	What	Amount	Timing	Status	Ledger
Gulf Breeze Community Redevelopment Agency	pays	Gulf Breeze CRA funds (tax increment and bank-loan proceeds; split not published) nominal, capital	$7.5M	upfront	confirmed	C
County and city general funds (increment diverted to the redevelopment agency)	repays	Gulf Breeze CRA tax increment (county + city): all of it over the term, of which loan payments are a part price-year, undiscounted, before growth; the whole increment, not only what goes to the loan	$30.8M	over debt term	observed in agency accounts	A
Gulf Breeze CRA (borrower on the $10.7M bank loan)	bears risk	Scheduled debt service nominal, sum	$12.6M	over debt term	provisional	A
Businesses and residents served from US 98	benefits	Fewer storm outages along the commercial corridor (Grid outage avoidance) not monetised	—	over horizon	not quantified	B
FPL ratepayers	benefits	Lower storm restoration cost (Avoided restoration cost) not monetised	—	over horizon	not quantified	B
Corridor property owners and businesses	benefits	Corridor appearance and private investment (Economic development) not monetised	—	over horizon	not quantified	B

Accountability

Who is answerable for each capital source. Missing fields are shown as gaps; nothing is filled in.

Source	Status	Issuer	Recipient	Authority	Gaps
Gulf Breeze CRA funds (tax increment and bank-loan proceeds; split not published) owner equity	confirmed	Gulf Breeze CRA (borrower on the $10.7M bank loan)	Gulf Breeze Community Redevelopment Agency	Community Redevelopment Act, Fla. Stat. part III, ch. 163 (statute text not yet checked)	none

Reconciliation

Each modelled quantity beside the record that could confirm it, and whether that check has been made.

Ledger	Quantity	Model	Observable counterpart	State
A	Scheduled annual debt service	$663K in the first year paid	Issuer's official statement and closing debt-service schedule No bonds have been priced; the schedule follows the entered rate and term.	not checked
A	Gulf Breeze CRA tax increment (county + city)	$1.5M a year in the price year, growing 4.0% a year	Redevelopment agency annual report: schedule of revenues (county and city increment) Base year taken from audited agency accounts; later years are a forecast.	partly observed
C	Capital sources	$7.5M entered; $7.5M confirmed	Executed agreements, award letters, bond closing documents Uses total $7.5M; counting threshold is "confirmed".	observed

Action gates

Undergrounding is in the adopted community redevelopment plan
CRA 2021 report: the Council/CRA Board approved the loan to fund undergrounding and the overpass, "from the Community Redevelopment Plan". Statute text not checked here.Settled
Conversion agreement with FPL
Project completed August 2026 with FPL; agreement terms and any FPL contribution (tariff credit) were not published.Settled
FDOT permits on US 98 right of way
Press release: design, permitting and coordination with FDOT preceded April 2023 construction.Settled
Relationship to FPL's storm protection plan
Paid by the CRA, not recovered from ratepayers through the storm-protection charge.Does not apply yet
CRA life covers the loan term
The CRA was created in December 1989. Under s. 163.3755(1), F.S., a CRA that existed on 1 October 2019 ends on its charter date or on 30 September 2039, whichever is earlier, unless the city or county that created it votes by majority to continue it. The carve-out in s. 163.3755(2)(a) covers only bonds outstanding on 1 October 2019; this loan was approved later. The loan runs to about FY2041. No continuation vote or charter date was found.Open question

Warnings and uncertainty

5 inputs are assumptions not found in any project document: Loan structure; Coverage covenant; Operating cost to the CRA; Useful life; Project limits on the map.
1 loan is not a counted funding source at the "confirmed" threshold, so the owner view leaves them out.

Source and methods register

Reproducible by design

Project costs, loans and grants
From city, county, state and Triumph records · see the sources table
Census boundaries
TIGERweb and shoreline-clipped cartographic files · retrieved 2026-10
Statutes
Text checked where cited · legal review still required

Calculation version: engine 0.2.0 / finance 0.2.0
Input fingerprint: …

Not legal, engineering or investment advice. Inputs come from public records unless labelled an assumption. No figure here is underwriting, an approved tariff, a utility plan, or an awarded funding commitment.