Page 20: of Maritime Logistics Professional Magazine (Jan/Feb 2019)

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SPECIAL REPORT

This has been a pioneering public-private partnership between local, state and private property owners ending a stalemate in economic development in Florida. Private “ property owners and developers are reluctant to invest millions of dollars in infrastructure on a greenfeld site in advance of proven market demand, and companies won’t consider greenfeld sites unless they are shovel ready. – Tracy Whirls, Executive Director, Glades

County Economic Development Council

The BNSF Logistics Park Kansas City, in Edgerton, Kansas.

ThE MISSINg FACTOR a development, real estate and land division. Norfolk South-

Three huge properties with decades of time and effort ex- ern offers detailed specifcations, supply-chain analysis, in- pended in their development and they still lack that one critical dustrial park planning and prospective design work for the component. Florida’s Gateway in Winter Haven has a direct link 2,000 industrial sites along its network. Last year, according to the CSX rail line but it lacks a tenant. Americas Gateway, one to Norfolk Southern the line helped 75 companies in locating county over in More Haven has a truck stop of some size but or expanding in 17 states, representing an investment of $1.1 also has no commercial tenants, and no connection to a Tier 1 billion, the creation of nearly 2,000 new jobs and the genera- railroad. Weyerhaeuser North Florida Mega Industrial Park has a tion of more than 147,000 carloads annually.

rail connection coming, but remains a vast untapped wilderness. Only two of the seven Class I railroads, have developed their

Beyond the inevitable reach of state wide port authorities, own shovel-ready site certifcation programs. Most of the sites proposed inland ports are often adrift in a sea cluttered with have some railroad ownership, which eliminates one of the regional politics, competing fnancial interests, and lacking major hurdles.

one key factor; be it lack for a rail line, lack of a port partner, Other relatively new and notable inland ports must include or lack of an anchor tenant. the ports operated by the Georgia Ports Authority (GPA), the latest of which, Appalachian Regional Port (ARP), is situated

TAkE ThE TRAIN in northwest Georgia near I-75 and U.S. 411. ARP is served

In North America each of the seven Class I railroads have by CSX, which provides a direct, 388-mile route to and from 20 Maritime Logistics Professional January/February 2019 | |