Efforts to attract firms continue
Local officials attend RR meetings
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Sunday, May 27, 2007
GALESBURG - All of the organizational work, such as forming marketing committees and drawing up conceptual drawings of Logistics Park-Galesburg, does not mean the air brakes have been put on efforts in the field to attract businesses here.The park is arguably, along with any potential expansion by the BNSF Railway, the key to replacing the thousands of jobs lost when Maytag and Butler pulled up stakes.
GREDA Executive Director Greg Mangieri said the week before last "is typically considered transportation week in Chicago. All of the major railroads have meetings."
GREDA officials were in Chicago for the event.
The Intermodal Association of North America, for one, met. Intermodal transportation, which could consist of containers being loaded on trucks on the West Coast, being brought to Galesburg and loaded onto freight trains, then carried to their destinations, is a major part of the logistics strategy here. Logistics also can mean huge warehouses producing hundreds of good-paying jobs.
The huge Ace Hardware warehouse on Interstate 80, near Princeton, and the Wal-Mart facility near the same interstate in the Spring Valley area are examples of the kind of operations officials hope will locate in this area. In southwest suburban Chicago, there are a number of logistics parks along I-80 and I-55.
Mangieri said contacts were made at the Chicago Traffic Club's annual dinner, which attracted about 1,300 people.
"We took advantage of the week and we met with a major, potential account, jointly with Lanco, Mercantile, CenterPoint and some others," he said. "I would kind of call it an informational meeting."
Mangieri said a conference call Wednesday was expected to result in further meetings with the potential account. He said more information on the potential tenant may be discussed at the next meeting of the Business District Development and Redevelopment Commission, which is open to the public. This past Wednesday's commission meeting was cancelled. The next meeting is scheduled for June 27.
"What I hope to accomplish ... is to develop a detailed strategy on how we move forward with marketing, comparing who is responsible for what, what resources we put in, what resources they put in," he said.
Mangieri said there were about two days of meetings with executive level people from the transportation industry, including BNSF Railway, Union Pacific, Kansas City Southern and CFX from the rail industry, Swift and Schneider from the trucking industry and "all of the major airlines."
He feels all of the efforts will eventually come together.
"We'll go through a period where we all have to get comfortable with each other," Mangieri said.
