So Many Came, but 94 Projects Received DOT's BUILD Program Funds

The lead to this blog post almost writes itself. To borrow a line from the classic baseball film “A Field of Dreams,” “If you BUILD it, they will come!” Except this time, we’re talking about BUILD grants offered by the Department of Transportation (DOT), and boy, did they ever come looking for a chance of receiving federal funds under this program

DOT recently announced that it issued $1.5 billion in federal fiscal year (FY) 2018 Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage Development (BUILD) grants to 91 projects in 49 states. Of note, DOT said that the demand for the BUILD grants far exceeded available funds, adding that “the locally-driven nature of the applications was clear in their volume and geographic diversity. Case in point, DOT received some 851 eligible applications — almost twice as many as in FY 2017 — to the notice of funding opportunity from all 50 states, as well as U.S. territories and the District of Columbia.

The potential applicants requested more than $10.9 billion. For this round of BUILD transportation grants, the maximum grant award is $25 million for a single project, and no more than $150 million can be awarded to a single state. There is a $5 million minimum award for projects located in urban areas, and a $1 million minimum for rural projects.

Previously known as Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) discretionary grants, BUILD grants support road, rail, transit and port infrastructure projects across the country. Congress has dedicated nearly $5.6 billion for nine rounds of National Infrastructure Investments to fund projects that have a significant local or regional impact. The award selection criteria included safety, economic competitiveness, quality of life, environmental protection and state of good repair. Further criteria included innovation, such as projects supporting Connected or Autonomous Vehicles infrastructure, broadband service to underserved communities, as well as projects that demonstrate partnerships between the public and private sectors, and nonfederal revenue for transportation infrastructure investments.

This program is a key one for transportation projects nationwide so it’s not surprising that it garnered so much interest. It will be interesting to see if even more applicants will emerge from the cornfield – like they did in the movie – during the next round of funding under this program. A list of recipients can be found here.