The Winslow City Council has approved two new agreements with Global Logistics Development Partners, the Scottsdale firm steering the I-40 TradePort Corridor, that together authorize up to $1.2 million in payments to the company over the next three years. Both items passed as part of the council’s consent agenda, without separate discussion.
The larger of the two is a sole-source contract worth up to $1.1 million to administer a $1.6 million Regional Infrastructure Accelerator award the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) granted the city this spring. The smaller is a $117,500 agreement for federal and state lobbying on behalf of the corridor, paid for with leftover partner contributions that Bernalillo County, N.M., transferred to Winslow when the city took over as the corridor’s lead public agency.
The agreements are the second and third contracts between Winslow and GLD Partners tied to the corridor. The company is already working under a separate agreement funded by the city’s fiscal year 2024 RAISE grant, which the council approved on a sole-source basis in January.
DOT’s Build America Bureau notified City Manager David Coolidge by email on April 28 that Winslow had been selected for the accelerator program, which is meant to speed the planning and delivery of transportation projects. The award carries a 100% federal share with no local match. According to the notification, it was part of a roughly $20 million round of accelerator grants announced nationwide.
The cooperative agreement between DOT and the city, included in the council packet, sets a performance period of Aug. 17, 2026, through Aug. 16, 2029. Winslow has taken on a set of federal obligations with it: a kickoff meeting with DOT, a staffing table within 30 days of the start date, a project management plan within 45 days and quarterly performance and financial reports throughout. The award is reimbursement-only, meaning the city must spend the money first and bill DOT afterward and it bars any profit or fee above cost. Every contractor hired with the funds must be approved in advance by DOT’s grant program manager.
Under the newly approved contract, GLD Partners will handle most of the day-to-day work of implementing the award: coordinating DOT-approved work plans, building the project management plan and risk registry, tracking milestones and spending, preparing quarterly reports and developing financing and project-delivery strategies for corridor infrastructure, including evaluation of public-private partnership structures.
The city has carved out $40,000 of the award for an independent grant administrator under a separate agreement, which is why GLD’s ceiling is set at $1.11 million rather than the full award. The contract describes that ceiling as a maximum authorization, not a guarantee of payment.
The city’s justification for skipping a competitive bid is spelled out in the contract itself: “The city is awarding this agreement on a sole source basis given contractor’s unique role and qualifications in supporting the TradePort Kingman, TradePort Winslow, TradePort Albuquerque, and Logistics Core Zone projects including infrastructure planning, engineering, design, environmental assessment, community alignment, administration, and project management across the TradePort Corridor.” It adds that “GLD Partners has substantial institutional knowledge of the corridor and its participating jurisdictions, projects, development strategy, and public-private delivery framework and is currently providing related planning and coordination services for the corridor under a separate city agreement funded by the city’s FY 2024 RAISE grant.”
Eleven GLD staff members are listed as key personnel, led by co-project managers Adam Wasserman and Lois Yates. Billing rates in the contract range from $97.75 an hour for an administrative manager to $310.50 an hour for Wasserman. Each rate includes a 15% overhead charge on top of the base hourly figure. Other named roles include a rail director, a development director, a logistics system manager, a technology director and a USDOT liaison.
The contract includes several safeguards. GLD cannot begin billable work until DOT has approved both the contracting arrangement and the applicable work plan and the city has issued a written notice to proceed. The exhibit reserved for those DOT-approved work plans is blank in the packet, marked to be attached once approved. The city may terminate the agreement if the designated project manager leaves and is not replaced within 60 days and the entire contract becomes void if the federal funding is withdrawn.
The second agreement is deliberately structured to keep federal dollars away from advocacy work. Federal grant funds generally cannot be used to lobby Congress or executive agencies and both contracts contain repeated language requiring GLD to keep its time, costs and invoices for the three agreements separately accounted for and never billed to more than one funding source.
The $117,500 comes from what the contract calls transferred funds: money that corridor partners had originally contributed to Bernalillo County, which coordinated the multi-state effort before Winslow assumed that role. The county passed the remaining balance to Winslow under an intergovernmental agreement for continuation of corridor legislative services.
GLD will use it to develop a coordinated federal and state legislative strategy for the corridor, pursue appropriations, earmarks and other funding opportunities and engage members of Congress, federal agencies and state officials. The firm is responsible for maintaining its own lobbying registrations and disclosure filings.
That agreement runs through March 31, 2028, with payment in three equal invoices and may be renewed for one-year terms with the city manager’s approval, contingent on available funds and continued progress on the corridor.
The I-40 TradePort Corridor is pitched as a multi-hub logistics and supply-chain network stretching from Southern California’s ports through Arizona and New Mexico, with planned hubs in Kingman, Winslow and the Albuquerque area. In Winslow, the project centers on land north of Interstate 40 that GLD plans to lease from the city for distribution and logistics uses.
