Cordele Intermodal Center will Impact Sumter County

A business project that will improve shipping services to and from firms in Southwest Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and the Florida Panhandle will become a reality, after many years in the planning stages.

A meeting of local business and government leaders and a representative from the office of Lt. Governor Casey Cagle on Thursday rolled out the plan for the Cordele Intermodal Center.

The project will effectively link the Port of Savannah with the four-state area by rail, using the Heart of Georgia (HOG) and Georgia Central railroads.  Brad Lafevers, president and CEO of HOG; Bruce Drennan, executive director of the Cordele-Crisp Industrial Development Council, and David Garriga, executive director of the Americus-Sumter County Payroll Development Authority, have been working on the project for six-seven years and have now cleared the last hurdles.

Garriga said, "Cordele has been very strongly working for this; of course the advantages being the interstate, getting the property at a reasonable price and the HOG Railroad and its capacity to serve such a facility." He said the economic impact of the facility will extend to counties within a 40-mile radius of Cordele.

The Crisp-Sumter County Industrial Development Council has an option on 1,150 acres of land in eastern Crisp County, very near I-75, convenient to the Cordele Industrial Park and the railroads.

The way it will work is industry will ship their products, by truck or rail, to the Intermodal Center where they will be loaded into containers which will then be shipped by rail (HOG, Georgia Midland Railroad, Georgia Central Railroad and CSX) to the Port of Savannah at Garden City. Once loaded onto ships at the port, empty containers would be shipped back to the Cordele facility by rail to await more product. The 50-100 new jobs expected to be generated will be at the Intermodal Center as well as in ancillary areas such as warehousing, distribution and trucking.

It is estimated that over the next five to 10 years, there could be between 2,000 and 3,000 new jobs within a 40-mile radius of Cordele directly related to the new facility.

Duane Broxterman of the HOG pointed out the Intermodal Center in Warren County, Va., which has similar demographics as Southwest Georgia, which produced 12,000 to 15,000 jobs in the 10 years it's been in existence. That facility has had a $1.5 million impact on the area's tax base as compared to before it was built.

In his portion of the presentation, which was informal and allowed for questions, Lafevers said the state has finally committed to funding the repair of two bridges, one over the Oconee River and the other over the Ocmulgee River, on the HOG line at a cost of $1.2 million, and he expects work to begin in September or October. State Sen. George Hooks, D-Americus, said that the money for those projects will come from bonds.

Drennan said the facility could have the same impact on this area of the state as a military base would, in the way of economic growth. "It's the ‘rising tide lifts all boats' syndrome," he said. "It will have a positive impact on 15 area counties."

Drennan said the project was helped along dramatically by the Power Alley Development Authority. "Sen. Hooks already had this in place to help boost this project if necessary. Georgia Tech did three feasibility studies and said the facility will only work in Cordele, not in Perry or Tifton or other locations."

Lafevers shared many interesting facts during the meeting, but one seemed to really impress: a railroad can transport one ton of freight 436 miles on one gallon of fuel, while a truck can transport one ton of freight 140 miles on one gallon of fuel.

"This doesn't impact the trucking industry in a negative way," Lafevers said. "This will allow the trucking industry to come to a less congested area, alleviating a great amount of congestion in the Savannah Port area and along the I-16 corridor.

"Industry follows infrastructure," he said. "This concept allows business to market in areas other than highly congested areas; those highly congested areas will benefit as well."

Drennan said the last feasibility study done by Georgia Tech revealed that there are 75,000 potential customers using the Port of Mobile that can be exploited by the Cordele facility to go to the Port of Savannah instead.

"HOG is located and based here," Lafevers said. "We want our home county to grow. Sumter has benefits that other don't ... the four-laning all the way to I-75 in coming years. This (the Intermodal Center) will allow Sumter County to use existing industrial assets."

Both Drennan and Garriga stressed the importance of regional projects. Garriga mentioned two recent ones between Sumter and Crisp, public-private partnerships: a rail spur for Con-Art in eastern Sumter County, and the water project which brings water from Crisp County into that part of Sumter to serve business, industry and residential customers. "We'll hopefully grow more in that part of the county as a result of the facility," he said.

Drennan said, in answer to a question, that there has really been no resistance to the project, "except maybe for CAVE people: people against virtually everything."

While joining forces, Drennan said a $3 million economic development stimulus grant will be applied for, and having multiple counties involved will have a positive impact on their chance of getting the funding. Lafevers echoed that support from various sectors will be required to complete the 1,100-plus acre facility and a cost that is unknown.

During the process, Lafevers said they had learned about a TIGER grant for which the Georgia Department of Transportation has strict requirements: it must be a statewide project; it must be located within an economically depressed are;, and it must be tied to a port. It is awarded on a competitive basis with a window of between $20 million to $300 million. This facility meets all three criteria.

The planners will now put together a grant application.

Hooks explained that after CSX abandoned the rail line from Marta, Ala., to Vidalia, this ultimately led, after the state spending $7 million to rebuild and repair the line, to the SAM Excursion Train, "one of the best economic development tools we have. The stars have all come together at the right time because of that. Atlanta has wanted to do this (intermodal center) but can't get their act together."

Lafevers said, "When you talk about a vision - a piece of line running through pine woods ... we said ‘we've got to defend this line' ... there have been a lot of nay-sayers ... but we wouldn't be here talking about this new facility if we hadn't defended it ... Every door we close today stops us from looking 20 to 30 years down the road. It has taken these kinds of efforts to make it happen. We must be aggressive (in economic development efforts). We don't have to sit back and wait for the world to come to us, but we can make them wish they'd gotten here sooner. We must have a 5-10-15-year vision. We must take the bull by the horns and make something happen."

Meanwhile, the first phase of the Cordele Intermodal Center will be operational on 100 acres by early 2010.