(The following story by Keith Benman appeared at NWITimes.com on November 30, 2009.)
MUNSTER, Ind. — Four years after Northwest Indiana leaders threw their weight behind an effort to land a major truck and rail intermodal center capable of creating thousands of jobs, the region has yet to land the big one.
Instead, the region has taken only baby steps toward that goal, while across the Illinois line, Crete appears poised to move ahead with a major intermodal development on land it annexed two years ago.
Northwest Indiana does not lack for groups espousing the area’s transportation advantages, says Amlan Mitra, a professor at Purdue University Calumet. And they are plenty willing to get together and talk about it.
“But once we get together, we don’t follow up on anything,” Mitra said. “People are not taking responsibility.”
Mitra authored a landmark study four years ago that concluded the region should take concrete steps to capitalize on its transportation assets, with the industry already generating total revenue of $4.45 billion here and employing 39,555 people.
When the drive to capitalize on the region’s position began, there was no lack of enthusiasm, with communities rushing forward to demonstrate they had the infrastructure and the will to build such a facility.
Major railroads also expressed interest, with CSX officials confirming they were on the hunt for an intermodal facility in Northwest Indiana and city of LaPorte officials confirming Norfolk Southern was interested in a site west of their city.
Intermodal facilities facilitate the transfer of huge freight containers from train to truck, and truck to train. Most of the jobs are created in warehouses and sometimes at manufacturing plants built on the site or nearby.
Several sites scouted
At least eight sites were identified as having the required rail service and highway access. They ranged from small sites of a few hundred acres in industrial cities to sites stretching thousands of acres in rural areas such as Union Mills and Kingsbury in LaPorte County. The Union Mills site emerged as the first to draw significant interest from developers, with South Bend-based Grubb & Ellis/Cressy & Everett buying options on 3,000 acres where three rail lines converge.
The plan even prompted a protest group called Stop Intermodal Save our County. But two years later, it looks like protesters could have saved their energy.
Although the developer reportedly still holds the land options there, nothing has developed, and buzz about the site has gone silent.
“When you look at what was supposed to transpire and what is actually going on, there is a big difference,” said Don Koliboski, director of economic development at the Northwest Indiana Forum, a private economic development group backed by the region’s leading employers.
The only full-fledged intermodal facility that has even come close to breaking ground is across the border in suburban Crete, where CenterPoint Properties Group spent millions of dollars to buy land that was annexed by the village.
The Oakbrook, Ill.-based company operates the giant CenterPoint Intermodal Center, in Elwood, Ill., which serves the BNSF Railway, and another in Rochelle serving the Union Pacific Railways Global III intermodal facility.
In Crete, primary rail lines for the Union Pacific and CSX run through the 1,000-acre site on the village’s southeast side. The village plans to run water and sewer lines there in the spring. CenterPoint plans to break ground on its first distribution facility there at about the same time.
“With the economy doing what it has done, it has been a slower go than we would like, but we are in it for the long haul,” said Eric Gilbert, CenterPoint senior vice president for infrastructure and transportation.
Three NWI locations highlighted
Koliboski, of the NWI Forum, said the recession reduced rail traffic and, with it, some of the urgency among railroads to speed freight transfers. Another factor impeding intermodal development in Northwest Indiana is a warehouse building boom that took place right before the downturn, leading to a glut of available space right across the border in Illinois.
The recession has also dealt a severe blow to jobs in transportation, warehousing and the allied wholesale trade industry in Northwest Indiana.
From the time professor Mitra’s study was released in early 2006 through the third quarter of 2008, jobs in those industries increased almost 14 percent, according to data from the Indiana Business Research Center prepared by the Center of Workforce Innovations.
But since the third quarter of 2008, all those gains have been wiped out, with nearly 5,000 jobs lost.
Despite that, Koliboski maintains slow and steady progress is being made in Northwest Indiana, some of it due to a two-year Forum marketing campaign.
He points to the growth of industrial parks like Ameriplex at the Port, along Interstate 94 in Portage; Ameriplex at the Crossroads, along Interstate 65 in Merrillville; and NorthWind Crossings at 61st Avenue and Interstate 65, in Hobart. The first two are being developed by Holladay Properties, of South Bend, and the NorthWind Crossings by Becknell Development, of Chicago.
The three have more than 3 million square feet of warehouse space already built out and represent a total investment of more than $200 million, according to Build Indiana.
Hanson Logistics Group’s new Chicago Consolidation Center at the NorthWind Crossings and the building of Midpoint USA, a 574,249-square-foot distribution center, at Ameriplex at the Port, have both increased the region’s transportation profile, Koliboski said.
Still, none of those facilities is served directly by rail, although there have been efforts to entice Canadian National Railway Co. to run a spur to the Hanson facility.
Plans are also moving forward to build a $50 million ICS Logistics cold storage facility at the former Kingsbury Industrial Park, which will be served by a CSX rail spur, according to Tim Gropp, executive director at the Greater LaPorte Economic Development Corp.
The Kingsbury Park site sits just west of the Union Mills site. Both were talked about two years ago as sites for an intermodal facility that would create up to 5,000 permanent jobs and serve anywhere from one to three railroads.
Gropp admits what’s now moving forward is a far cry from those spectacular visions, but he maintains the current development is important and eventually could lead to something like what originally was described.
“We never said this is going to happen, and then we lost it,” Gropp said. “It’s just a matter of keeping pushing forward.”
ILLINOIS INTERMODAL SITE ON FAST TRACK WHILE EIGHT NWI SITES STALL
Four years ago, excitement was high in the region as a push for capitalizing on its crowded network of railroads and highways kicked off. Soon economic development gurus were talking about developing enormous rail-truck terminals called intermodal yards that would create thousands of jobs and millions of dollars in tax revenue.
But little has happened since, with eight Northwest Indiana sites described by local officials as prime for intermodal development seeing little or no expansion.
In Illinois, CenterPoint Properties appears poised to proceed with an intermodal development on land annexed two years ago by the Village of Crete. The Oakbrook, Ill.-based company operates the giant CenterPoint Intermodal Center, in Elwood, Ill., serving BNSF Railway and another in Rochelle, Ill., serving the Union Pacific Railways Global III intermodal facility.
ILLINOIS
Crete annexation (Crete) — Annexation approved and development agreement reached March 2007. Water and sewer installation set for spring. CenterPoint Properties plans to erect first building in 2010. Could serve Union Pacific and CSX. (immediately south of Crete)
INDIANA — Potential Intermodal sites
Gibson Yards (Hammond) — Indianapolis boulevard at nine-span bridge.
Indiana Harbor (East Chicago) — BP building $20 million in dock improvements on Indiana Harbor Canal.
West of Oak Ridge Prairie Park (Griffith)
Gary/Chicago International Airport (Gary) — State of Indiana has applied for $2.8 billion for Chicago-to-Cleveland high-speed rail route that would pass just north of airport. Airport named as possible station in application.
Interstate 65 (Gary) — I-65 and Central Avenue.
Port of Indiana (Burns Harbor) — Leeco Steel, steel distributor and processor, of Darien, Ill., becomes port’s newest tenant in 2009.
Union Mills (LaPorte County) — Developer continues to hold options on land for potential intermodal development that would cover thousands of acres, at U.S. 6 and Ind. 39.
Kingsbury Industrial Park (LaPorte County) — ICS Logistics plans to build cold storage facility at park. County, state and CSX putting up combined $9 million to reconstruct Hupp Road and extend CSX line into park, at U.S. 35 and U.S. 6.