LAPORTE COUNTY — LaPorte County Council members are extending a welcome mat to a national logistics company that could bring hundreds of new jobs to the area by 2010. ICS Logistics is considering investing at least $50 million to build a distribution warehouse in the Kingsbury Industrial Park.
A Major Opportunity
ICS, based in Jacksonville, FL, is an asset based supply-chain solutions company, providing transportation, warehousing and maritime related services to national and international customers. ICS caters to a wide variety of industries, including food manufacturing, retail grocery, food service, forestry, steel and metal, according to the Greater LaPorte Economic Development Corporation.
ICS also operates marine based terminals in Jacksonville, Mobile, AL, and New Orleans, LA.
The proposed LaPorte County project would be a 500,000 square foot cold and frozen storage distribution center. That's about the size of 10 NFL size football fields. Produce and frozen food would be brought in by rail from Central America, and then trucked by semi-trailers across the Midwest.
The project would include an initial investment by ICS of approximately $50 million, and would create at least 135 full time positions with an average salary, including benefits, of $43,000. In addition, between 225 and 500 transportation trucking and rail line jobs would be created, along with approximately 500 construction jobs needed to build the warehouse building and surrounding logistics.
But, the project isn't a done deal.
Needed Improvements
"We have everything they're looking for. But, it's going to take a little bit of infrastructure upgrade by the county to get the attraction done, and get the company to sign on in LaPorte County," said Greater LaPorte EDC Executive Director Tim Gropp.
ICS is considering the Kingsbury Industrial Park site along with several others in Indiana and Illinois, according to the Greater LaPorte EDC.
The Kingsbury site isn't fully prepared for that type of project, so, on Tuesday, the LaPorte County Council gave unanimous approval to use $6 million in "major moves" funding--banked by the county from the lease of the Indiana Toll Road--for upgrades to Hupp Road, sewer improvements in the industrial park, and rail line rerouting to better serve the proposed location.
CSX rail lines already run along the perimeter of the industrial park.
In addition to that funding, INDOT has agreed to provide $2.2 million in funding for the improvements, along with $780,000 from the Indiana Economic Development Corporation and $3 million from CSX.
It's money, county leaders say they have to spend to have a shot at landing the warehouse.
"This is something you have to do," said LaPorte County Council President Mark Yagelski. "You have to challenge yourself to think of ways outside of the box to bring people in. And, this is one of the ways without directly giving the tax dollars out to do that."
The best part, Yagelski added?
All of that investment should be re-paid.
"We're going to try to TIF the area, and in 10 years we'll receive our money back," he said.
TIF, short for Tax Increment Financing, captures all new property tax revenue from a development in order to fund additional infrastructure and capital improvements within the TIF district it includes. In this case, it allows the county to spend the $6 million out of county funds without seeking a bond issue.
Developers say there's a simple reason for the investment.
"At the end of the day, it's about bringing jobs for the residents," said Chris McGrath, spokesman for the project's developer, Champaign, IL based Halfwassen and Associates.
But, some living nearby are worried the project will also bring something else: noise and traffic to their quiet rural homes.
Not Sold
"I think it might bring jobs to the area. But, then again, with the increase in truck traffic, and the infrastructure that will have to be done, to me it's just astounding," said Lance Hindsley, who has lived just outside the Kingsbury Industrial Park off U.S. 35 for most of his life.
"The highways around here aren't capable of handling the amount of trucks they say will be going in and out of there. And, there's not many ways in and out of there. There's just one way-- and that's just across the woods here," Hindsley continued, pointing just down the street of his subdivision behind Hupp Road.
Signs around the Kingsbury site still read "No Intermodal" and "Save Our County"--remnants of a 3 year old "war" over a proposed freight-rail "intermodal" hub. Rumors of an intermodal development have circulated around Union Mills, Kingsbury and Kingsford Heights, but no proposals for such a development in any of the locations have been made public.
Hundreds of residents sounded off about rumors that intermodal proposals would include buying up homes and farmland across South Central LaPorte County. Now, some, like Hindsley, are convinced this is just another battle in the greater war.
"I believe it is [related to the intermodal proposal]," said Hindsley. "I think this is just the initial step to getting the main one they were talking about a year or two ago."
A Different Proposal In A Different Place
"I think this thing can expand and expand," said Yagelski. "With the right economic atmosphere, this could happen for LaPorte County, and this could expand bigger. But, you couldn't find a better area to suit it. It takes the fear of buying all the farmland and those houses."
"There is a potential for expansion," agreed Gropp. "But, this is not the intermodal. This does what they wanted--which is to help develop the Kingsbury Industrial Park and not necessarily put something in a farm field at this time."
Developing the industrial park also gives the county a better shot at landing other tenants in the same area, Gropp added.
As for noise and traffic issues?
"There's 200 trucks that come in and out of the Kingsbury Industrial Park today," countered McGrath. "The logistics company certainly adds more trucks to that, but not in a significant kind of way. That's why you have industrial parks. It's an existing industrial park that has the
zoning. It has the water, the sewer, and the rails. So, this is a perfect location to bring that kind of a company."
"Yes, there will be an increase in truck traffic," agreed Yagelski. "But, you can buffer a lot of that stuff out. They're planning on taking a lot of the soil they're going to work with, and they're going to build around it
an abatement type area, so it become less noisy and that type of thing."
"You couldn't find a better area to suit it," he quickly added.
And, even some who were skeptical about the intermodal project before, are now singing a different tune.
"If jobs are going to come this way, then we could deal with [noise]," said Kingsford Heights resident James Lamb, standing in his front yard looking toward the industrial park. "It's on a smaller scale, and it means jobs. That sounds good to me."
ICS executives hope to make a final site decision within the next two months, McGrath said. If LaPorte County is awarded the project, ground could be broken as early as spring 2010.
