Rochelle provides blueprint for learning
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Sunday, May 27, 2007
GALESBURG - As work to get Logistics Park-Galesburg up and running continues, it may be instructive to look at the northern Illinois community of Rochelle, where one of the firms that will market the park already has done a lot of work.A long-term dream
Jason Anderson, executive director of the Greater Rochelle Economic Development Corp. for 2 1/2 years, said Ken Wise, his predecessor, "had a dream about 20 years ago about building a major rail structure of some kind that he would put together for both railroads to use."
Rochelle is on the mainline of the BNSF Railway, as well as the Union Pacific. Rochelle also is at the intersection of two interstates, 39 and 88.
The railroads intersect in the middle of town, creating a "V" to the east and west. Anderson said Wise hoped to utilize that to the advantage of both lines.
"That didn't work because the railroads didn't cooperate," Anderson said. "The BN went to the Joliet Arsenal, and the UP wanted to go to Maple Park."
Maple Park is a small town near DeKalb. By Anderson's description, a group of angry housewives there wanted no part of the intermodal facility.
"And they ran the Union Pacific out of town on a rail," Anderson said.
In the meantime, Wise secured a grant to do a feasibility study for the intermodal facility.
"It showed (the location) was ideal," Anderson said.
CenterPoint Properties, one of the companies that signed an agreement in April to market Logistics Park-Galesburg, managed construction of Union Pacific's massive Global III Intermodal facility, and is developer of CenterPoint Intermodal Center.
Global III opened in 2003, "ahead of schedule and under budget," according to CenterPoint's Web site. The facility has thus far created 150 jobs and operates 24 hours a day.
Anderson said there are long-term contracts between shippers, railroads and customers that have perhaps caused Global III to grow somewhat slower than anticipated but that may be changing.
Noisy trains in Chicago
Anderson said highways, entrances into the park and plans for future needs are key.
"We put together a community traffic plan for the next 20 years," he said. "The traffic is starting to increase. We come back and said 'there needs to be two access roads. ... We know we need to have two interstate access points and we need to have a plan.'"
Greg Mangieri, executive director of Galesburg Regional Economic Development Association, feels Galesburg is in good shape in the area of access.
"I think there's one entrance under construction," he said.
Mangieri said that in a conference call Wednesday, there was discussion with CenterPoint about developing a conceptual design of what the park will look like "where the rail will go, where the roads will go. In my experience, with the volume of truck traffic, your best design is a flow-through facility, where you have entrances at one end and exits at the other end."
Mangieri said he expects entrances and exits on both U.S. 150 and Knox Highway 10, with truck traffic flowing through east to west. He said the conceptual drawing is more for the purpose of advertising.
"The companies we are successful soliciting will pretty much dictate what the facility will look like," Mangieri said.
Anderson said the Global III facility also is unique because of its 30-foot berm, which is 100 feet wide.
"We don't want to hear, feel, see or smell it, to even know it is here," he said of the facility on the south edge of Rochelle. "People come here wanting to see it and they can't find it."
The logistics park planned for Galesburg is farther from town and smaller than the large Rochelle facility.
