The developer behind the proposed I-40 TradePort told the Winslow City Council during their regular meeting last week that a groundbreaking is planned for Dec. 3 and that the city-owned site at State Route 87 and Interstate 40 could eventually hold about 2.5 million square feet of logistics, manufacturing and commercial space.
Adam Wasserman, managing partner of GLD Partners and Lois Yates, COO of GLD Partners presented about their trade port project that Atlas Global Development is developing near the airport.
Economic Development Director Jack Fitchett opened the item by saying that he, City Manager David Coolidge and City Attorney Trish Stuhan are negotiating what he called a “hub agreement” with GLD covering the land the city recently purchased. “That ultimately is going to be a hub agreement designed for the 310 acres that the city just purchased from the Brim Halls a few months back, if you recall,” Fitchett said. “We’re hoping that we can get that for this council, so that would be for the 18th, but there’s a few sticking points that we still need a massage with GLD. That being said, we’re getting very close.” He said the Dec. 3, groundbreaking would include GLD, Kingman and Bernalillo County in New Mexico as well as other partners.
GLD described the Winslow project as one node in a planned network of trade ports the company is developing across the country. According to the presentation, the first phase runs from California through Arizona and New Mexico to Oklahoma, with what the presenters called “super hub” sites in Atlanta, New York, Chicago, Memphis and Phoenix. “Winslow moving from the West Coast to the East Coast, we think sits in a very strategic spot,” Wasserman said.
Wasserman said the company is working with third-party logistics firms, truck fleet operators, ocean carriers, railroads, warehouse operators, manufacturers and investors, and that several logistics firms have asked for proposals even though no buildings exist yet. “They said, treat it like you have a building, give us a proposal so we can look at a market, a delivery date and a building,” he said. Wasserman added that there will not be an intermodal rail facility in Winslow, although rail access would be available for other uses.
He distinguished the project from a conventional industrial park. He said trade ports would offer transloading and cross-docking services connected to seaports and supported by a cargo-tracking software.
The presenters said they met with U.S. Department of Transportation officials several times the week before the meeting, and that a federal SMART (Strengthening Mobility and Revolutionizing Transportation) grant is funding a pilot of the company’s technology along I-40 in New Mexico with companies including Intel, Tempur-Pedic and General Mills. “There’s probably more investment from the federal government coming, but we can’t project that and promise that,” Wasserman said. “It’s not in our hands, but they’re very interested and some requests have been and will go in.”
Yates said the Arizona Department of Transportation did not join the SMART grant application for the U.S. 93 corridor between Kingman and Las Vegas but noted New Mexico’s legislature has created a $50 million trade port fund.
GLD presented updated figures for the Winslow site that Wasserman said were “pretty similar” to numbers given at a prior meeting. “When it’s all developed, we think it’s going to have about 2.5 million square feet of development,” he said. “And there’ll be about six, seven, eight hundred million dollars of investment in that and about, we think, plus two thousand new jobs. That’s what the site holds.” He broke the investment down as roughly $70 million to $90 million in the logistics core zone, the port portion closest to the interstate, and $500 million to $700 million in an investment district of manufacturing and distribution buildings.
Wasserman acknowledged the numbers are projections. “So you could say, will that happen? Is there going to be a market? That’s a fair question,” he said. “We believe there is, that’s what those numbers reflect.” The site plan placed the port along the I-40 frontage road and Hibbard Road, with manufacturing and distribution buildings north of it and a commercial area that Wasserman said would be “largely restaurants and hotel, but there might be some office space in there as well.”
On timing, Wasserman said GLD expects to release a request for proposals for civil engineering soon. “That got held up for a long time because of issues related to the federal government. But we’re ready to go,” he said.
He said engineering would be complete by the middle of next year and construction on the port portion could begin later next year, with the first terminal and a first manufacturing or distribution project expected in the second quarter of the following year. “The project economics and business model really require things to move along,” he said.
Yates said GLD analyzed freight moving on I-40 by commodity group and, using electronics as an example, said Winslow could serve both the semiconductor industry in Phoenix and the microelectronics and federal laboratory cluster in Albuquerque. “Why can Winslow not be that center point for certain functions, whether it be manufacturing, whether it be distribution, whatever it might be, can serve both communities?” she said. She said one company has already expressed interest in an I-40 location and that GLD intends to approach companies directly rather than wait for inquiries.
Wasserman said the city, as property owner, would need to approve a definitive plan after the hub agreement is signed. “We’re not going to start anything until the city says that makes sense,” he said. He described GLD as the project developer and long-term manager of the port system rather than the property developer.
On the financial arrangement with the city, Wasserman said the property “will be transacted. It will create value. It’s going to return to the city and that’s the nature of the public private structure that we’re on, which is where you’re going to get your money back and you are a partner in the upside as the project generates additional revenue.” GLD proposed regular updates to staff and an annual progress meeting with the council.
Mayor Roberta Cano said the project matched her vision for the city and its young people. “I know the groundbreaking is somewhat symbolic, but it’s real. And I always say it’s not real until we move dirt,” she said, adding that city officials have been invited to events overseas, including in Seoul, South Korea, to meet investors, and told the presenters, “I’m all in 100.”
The council took no action on the item, which was a presentation only.
