Brightline, the South Florida commuter train line being rebranded as Virgin Trains USA, may add a pair of stations at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport and PortMiami.
Launched last year as Brightline, the line’s trains now operate daily service under the Virgin Trains moniker among the downtowns of West Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale and Miami.
The new stations at the airport and seaport would cost between $20 and $30 million and take 18 months to build, according to a proposed $1.5 billion bond offering now being circulated by the company among would-be investors. Although the additional stations are mentioned in the proposal, the stations would be funded by other means, the prospectus says.
There was no immediate indication that a rail station at the airport is in the business development plans of the Broward County Aviation Department. A station serving the Tri-Rail commuter system is located a short distance from the airport west of I-95.
A department spokesman could not be immediately reached for comment Monday. But a new Virgin Trains station wouldn’t lack for potential customers. The department says Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood served 35 million airline passengers last year.
And billionaire entrepreneur Richard Branson of the United Kingdom, whose Virgin Voyages cruise line opened its headquarters last year in Plantation, expects to have an “adults only” cruise ship and terminal in operation at PortMiami by the end of 2021.
The bond offering also said Virgin Trains envisions adding a station at Disney World, some 20 miles from the line’s proposed Orlando station. By 2023, the prospectus says, the Miami-Orlando route would haul 6.6 million people annually.
The bond offering, which was floated last week, is intended to pay for the line’s extension to Orlando, and refinance $600 million in existing bonds that were issued to pay for the existing South Florida route.