Real Estate & Property Law

Intermodal Facilities

By Alan Ackerman

BLE.org

Martinez noted that about 400 acres are available near the preferred site for development of a business park, which could accommodate companies that would want to locate to New Market to take advantage of the railroad facility.

It would be Jefferson County's link to a system of rail lines and other interposal operations that Norfolk Southern is planning called the Crescent Corridor, Martinez said. The corridor would be a 2,500-mile route linking the Gulf Coast to New England with connections to the Port of Virginia and to the West Coast via a route to Chicago.

Martinez cited studies by the University of Tennessee and by Insight Research Analysis, which he said were done independently, that calculated the operation's economic benefits to New Market and the region. Insight Research estimated 1,801 jobs would be added in New Market by 2020 and the UT study predicted 26,000-27,000 new jobs for Jefferson County by 2025.

Martinez also addressed what he said was wrong information circulating in the community about the project.

Now that recent legislative skirmishes over port rail lines have ended, it's time to take a hard look at the idea of building intermodal rail facilities and rail lines on the Noisette and Clemson properties at the northern end of the old Navy Base. This idea is simply unworkable because of numerous legal impediments.

This spring, legislative leadership introduced a budget proviso and amendment to the ports authority-restructuring bill that sought to force rail access through the northern end of the old Navy base. Meanwhile, the Department of Commerce and its Division of Public Railways offered up recommendations in the State Rail Plan 2008 Update to pursue options that included developing the Noisette and Clemson sites into rail facilities served by northern access.

Developing these sites as rail facilities and forcing northern access is the wrong choice for a number of reasons,

The fights in local communities over eminent domain utilization for intermodal facilities are a nationwide area of local dispute.  The above two article are good examples. 

Full post as published by National Eminent Domain Blog on July 08, 2009 (boomark / email).