(The following article by Brad Cooper was posted on the Kansas City Star website on May 26.)
KANSAS CITY — BNSF Railway has reaffirmed its interest in a site near Gardner for a nearly $1 billion freight center that would be the third of its kind in the country.
The railroad on Wednesday sent a letter spelling out its intentions to the city, which is now examining the impact of the proposed freight complex.
The project has regional implications, with the promise of creating more than 7,000 jobs and generating millions of dollars a year in new taxes.
BNSF has been flirting with the site for months because the property sits on the railroad’s 2,200-mile track running from Los Angeles to Chicago. But the company waited until it completed several studies before deciding to move forward with the project.
“These studies essentially validate both the business case for the facility and the Kansas City region’s need for this kind of development,” wrote J. Vann Cunningham, BNSF’s assistant vice president of economic development.
The railroad is looking at building what it calls a logistics park on about 1,300 acres just southwest of the Gardner city limits. The project includes what’s known as an intermodal hub in which containers are transferred from trains to trucks for shipment elsewhere.
The intermodal hub would sit on about 350 acres. The railroad plans to pick a developer to build a warehouse and distribution complex on the remaining 1,000 acres. The developer could be selected in July, the railroad said.
Meanwhile, the Gardner City Council met Thursday to discuss options for stopping the BNSF project if the council so desires.
The city’s attorney told the council that it would be extraordinarily difficult, if not impossible, to stop the railroad from locating the freight center outside the city limits.
The railroad, he said, has broad powers under federal law intended to foster interstate commerce. The law allows the railroad to override local zoning laws if it’s needed, he said.
“The railroad can essentially go where they want and do what they want to do within reason,” City Attorney James Hubbard said.
Since the project is outside Gardner, the main decision facing the city is whether it wants to expand its boundaries so it can benefit from taxes the project would generate and exercise some control over the way it develops.
Some City Council members said that if the city can’t stop the project, it needs to do its best to make sure it can exert any control it can over the project.
But other council members said the city needs to take a stand against the project.
“Going ahead with this thing as if it’s a done deal is like rolling over and playing dead for them,” said Councilman Mark Raney.
Hundreds of Gardner residents are upset over the prospect that such a large industrial project would locate so close to their city, which has already seen its population grow by about 75 percent in the past six years.
Claud Hobby, an opponent of the freight center, said the letter seems to indicate that BNSF wants to expedite the project.
“We apparently have gotten their attention,” he said. “They seem to be concerned that opposition to this thing is picking up.”
Hobby and others are skeptical of broad promises that the project will generate hundreds of millions of dollars for the local economy. They are concerned that the railroad or the third-party developer will ask for incentives that could water down the impact.
They are also concerned that local government could be saddled with paying for a lot of the infrastructure for the center.
The center would require at least $66 million in road improvements to handle the big increase in truck traffic.