Per Orlando Sentinel:
January 24, 2013|By Dan Tracy, Orlando Sentinel
The Mormon church could stymie efforts to build a $1.5 billion train between South Florida and Orlando International Airport by not allowing tracks on land it once owned.
Attorneys for All Aboard Florida, the Coral Gables company behind the train, are trying to decide what to do about the potential problem. On Thursday, they were poring over legal documents related to the property on the south side of the BeachLine Expressway near the airport.
"We're still analyzing it. I don't have an answer to it," said Husein Cumber, executive vice president of Florida East Coast Industries, a privately held real-estate outfit that owns All Aboard Florida.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints gave the land to the expressway authority in 1965 with the condition that it be used for a "limited access toll road." Nothing was said about a train or other possible development.
That could allow the church to halt the train. The church, through its Deseret Ranch holdings, owns 300,000 acres that abuts the BeachLine and sprawls across Orange, Brevard and Osceola counties.
Ranch manager Erik Jacobsen, contacted by email, would say only, "We are supportive of efforts to bring rail to Central Florida as part of regional transportation opportunities and are willing to work with all parties involved."
He declined further comment.
The church, which has plans for a mixed-used development on 19,000 acres close to the airport and the Medical City complex, could use 48-year-old agreement to press for access to the train or to the BeachLine.
Authority director Max Crumit said his agency is willing to turn over the land to All Aboard Florida for a negligible fee, "but we can't give them property rights we don't have."
Crumit said he does not know if the church would have the ability to stop construction.
"That could be open to interpretation," said Crumit, an engineer who emphasized he was not offering a legal opinion.
All Aboard wants to be running by 2015. It would become the nation's first privately financed passenger-rail system since the automobile became the first option for travelers. Government invariably pays most of the mass-transit costs because the systems are so expensive to build and operate.
In dealing with the Orlando authority and the state, which owns the BeachLine in Brevard, All Aboard Florida already has been asked to accommodate widening or new interchanges for the road that connects Cocoa with Interstate 4.
To do so, All Aboard Florida train might be forced to elevate along some stretches or tunnel under proposed or improved interchanges. That could dramatically increase the cost per mile from $5 million to $30 million along the BeachLine.
A sister company of All Aboard Florida, Florida East Coast Railway, already owns a set of tracks that stretch from Miami to Jacksonville. All Aboard Florida would have largely unfettered use of those tracks, which now carry 10 freight trains daily.
The BeachLine cuts through 11 miles of land that used to be owned by the church. The road is in a corridor 300 feet wide.
All Aboard officials wants to attract passengers who otherwise might fly between OIA and South Florida. There also would be stations in Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach.
The train trip would take about three hours, as opposed to four hours by car. Top speed could be 125 mph.
Construction could start as early as next year if agreements can be reached with the state, the expressway authority, the airport and the church.
With one-way tickets estimated in the $100 range, All Aboard Florida anticipates carrying nearly 1.5 million passengers between Central and South Florida within three years of its inaugural trip, generating $145 million in annual fares.
