Park poised for success
Transportation options make Galesburg good location
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Sunday, May 27, 2007
GALESBURG - CenterPoint Properties, along with GREDA and Mercantile Companies Inc., is marketing Logistics Park-Galesburg. A spokesman for CenterPoint said Galesburg is "well positioned" for the park to succeed.Matt Tramel said the tremendous amount of imports is driving the growth of intermodal transportation in the country, much of it in the Midwest.
"Galesburg, it's well positioned next to (Interstate 74)," Tramel said. "There's quick access to I-39, 80 and 88 and your true asset is the frontage of the BNSF line. Those are the main components of an intermodal, logistics park."
Logistics refers to warehouse and distribution operations, while intermodal operations involve the carrying of containers of goods by ocean-going vehicles. Containers are unloaded by cranes onto trucks, transported to logistics parks where lifts put them onto trains, which haul the containers to their destinations.
While some members of the public have questioned whether Galesburg is too far from Chicago for the park to succeed, Tramel doesn't see that as a problem.
"I think we're seeing a lot of places where a town like Galesburg, it is an historic railroad town," he said. "The attributes that brought the railroad to town in the first place still hold true. It's the most cost-effective way to transport freight across this country."
Galesburg Regional Economic Development Association Executive Director Greg Mangieri agreed as to the importance of the railroad.
"The BN rail line, from the BN yard to Peoria, runs directly parallel to the south property border of the facility. You could just swing in a couple of yards and have an east-west track through the facility. We could swing it into the property and out of the property without crossing a public road. To do that, you have to build a couple of switches and a couple of turnouts," Mangieri said.
Tramel said the U.S. economy is making a transition from manufacturing to transporting goods. He used the logistics park in Elwood, at the former Joliet Arsenal, as an example. He said that during World War II, Korea and Vietnam, the arsenal employed thousands of people in a manufacturing environment. The Army closed the facility in 1995. BNSF bought it in 2000.
"The same attributes that made it great for manufacturing made it great for logistics," he said. "The railroad infrastructure and the interstates are just critical and they don't go away."
CenterPoint also is involved with two intermodal facilities in the northern Illinois community of Rochelle. It, too, has prime interstate and railroad access. And, while closer to Chicago than Galesburg, certainly is not in the suburban area.
Rochelle, with a population of about 9,500, is about 25 miles south of Rockford, 70 miles west of downtown Chicago and 35-40 miles west of Aurora. It is the home to the 1,230-acre Union Pacific Global III Intermodal facility and CenterPoint Intermodal Center, which contains 365 acres. Logistics Park Galesburg is a 350-acre facility.
The main lines of the Union Pacific Railroad and the BNSF Railway go through Rochelle, as do interstates 39 and 88.
Although Rochelle is much closer to Chicago than is Galesburg, the community feels it almost ran into the problem some residents here are worried about.
"They (UP) were under the impression it was a little far out," said Jason Anderson, executive director of the Greater Rochelle Economic Development Corp. "The reality was (for) what they were spending in one month in Chicago for rent (for Global I and II), they could buy the entire 1,300 acres" in Rochelle.
Anderson said there was another factor. It also is one that could help Galesburg.
"Global I and II (in Chicago) are at 125 percent capacity," he said. "The city of Chicago is no longer the industrial mecca it once was. They really don't want those noisy trucks and trains in Chicago. There's a lot of pressure to move some of that business to this part of the world."
