Polk County Rail Hub

In January 2006, CSX Corporation announced it had taken its first step, a proposed property purchase, toward building an integrated logistics center (ILC) in Winter Haven, Polk County. The ILC is to include a truck, rail, and warehousing hub and terminal for the transfer and storage of containerized consumer goods.
Development will be in two phases, the first starting in 2007 and the second in 2010. Employment at the ILC is expected to total 2,000 with an average wage of $43,000. Related employment in Winter Haven outside the ILC is expected to grow by 6,500.

David Greene, Winter Haven city manager, said “As experiences with similar facilities have shown, the ILC could generate more than 8,000 jobs in Winter Haven and Polk County as companies establish nearby warehousing, manufacturing, and logistics operations.” Economic research shows that over a 10-year period, operations like the proposed ILC could produce more than $10 billion in economic activity and add $900 million in state and federal tax revenue... Trade and Industry Development

Gomez and six other angry residents from rural Sundance Ranch Estates voiced their opposition Wednesday at a Polk County Commission meeting to a proposed $100 million rail and truck transfer center. CSX railroad plans to begin building the center early next year on 1,250 acres in South Winter Haven.

--

CSX is expected to close on a deal with Winter Haven to buy 320 acres for $7 million by the end of the year. By 2010, CSX plans to have purchased an additional 930 acres from the city for about $16 million. The company plans to offer 3 million square feet of warehouse space, 1.5 million square feet of industrial sites and 500,000-square feet of office space. In all, when construction is completed by about 2020, the space available should be equivalent to about 25 Wal-Mart supercenters. -- The Lakeland Ledger

Today’s news reports outline some of the concerns expressed by residents near the planned CSX Integrated Logistics Center. While there was some mention of a proposed “berm” to buffer the site from the residential area, CSX addressed this and other concerns in a letter sent to Sundance Ranch owners on February 15, 2007. Representative samples of the proposed landscaping berm follow the highlights. (You can download the entire text of the letter at the end of this post.)

Additionally, CSX is currently preparing a plan to host neighborhood meetings as forums to discuss the questions and concerns of residents. The Chamber will also implement an “On Track” Q & A forum on our website where questions will be addressed by CSX experts. Watch for announcements of both the meetings and the “On Track” forum....Winter Haven C of C

Rochelle, a suburban city west of Chicago, hit tough times in the late 1980s.

--

One those rail companies, Union Pacific, floated the idea for a 1,200-acre Integrated Logistics Center, or ILC. An ILC is a rail yard hub combined with warehouses for companies to store goods. Shipping containers can either be put onto trains or into warehouses for future delivery.

--

The facility paid quick dividends, even though it is still not fully built, said Jason Anderson, an employee in Rochelle's economic development department. Companies such as Rayovac, Del Monte and ConAgra Foods moved into the area because of the ILC. In all, 2,000 new jobs have been created. -- The Lakeland Ledger

Pam Childers says she is all for growth and development, just not in her backyard.

Childers and about a dozen other residents in Sundance Ranch Estates are still wrangling with CSX officials about the railroad company's plans to put a berm on the edge of their property to separate their homes from a proposed CSX rail center. The dirt berm would be 15 feet high, 45 feet wide and about a half-mile long. -- The Lakeland Ledger

CSX Transportation Inc. plans to build, beginning in January, a $100 million rail transfer center on 1,250 acres in south Winter Haven north of Old Bartow-Lake Wales Road.

When completed in 2020, CSX's Integrated Logistics Center, or ILC, will employ at least 5,000 people and generate millions of dollars in economic activity each year. -- The Lakeland Ledger

I've been in Las Vegas for a bit attending a conference, but I'm back in Polk County now. Over the next few weeks I plan on catching up on all the details surrounding the two biggest projects in Polk County. The CSX facility and the Heartland Parkway. -- Empirical Polk

I’m working on a story about the potentially giant CSX rail/freight distribution center project south of Winter Haven. With that in mind, I had a nice chat Monday with Haven Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Bob Gernert about that project and Haven in general. -- Polk County News Blog

OCALA -- Six years ago, Mike Sizemore and his friend Edward Anderson proposed to city and county leaders that the best way to cure Ocala of its traffic ills at railroad crossings was to move the trains out of downtown.

"And we got nowhere," Sizemore remembered. "They all but showed us the door."

Of course that was long before the state government's announcement last year of a $491 million plan to divert more CSX freight traffic from Orlando to the route through Ocala -- a move expected to increase rail traffic in the city from roughly 20 trains a day to more than 30. CSX also plans to build a 1,250-acre logistics center with a truck, rail and warehousing hub in Winter Haven in anticipation of growing freight demand on its Chicago-to-Florida line. -- Ocala.com

Birdsong said he was particularly proud in 2006 of working with commissioners to complete the city's land deal with CSX Transportation Inc. Beginning in January, CSX plans to start building a $100 million rail transfer center on 1,250 acres in south Winter Haven, north of Old Bartow-Lake Wales Road.

When completed in 2020, CSX's Integrated Logistics Center, or ILC, will employ at least 5,000 people and generate millions of dollars in economic activity each year. - The Lakeland Ledger

Of course, that was long before the state government's announcement last year of a $491 million plan to divert more CSX freight traffic from Orlando to the route through Ocala - a move expected to increase rail traffic in the city from roughly 20 trains a day to more than 30.

CSX also plans to build a 1,250-acre logistics center with a truck, rail and warehousing hub in Winter Haven in anticipation of growing freight demand on its Chicago-to-Florida line -- Ocala Star-Banner

In the course of research for an upcoming story on the big CSX project planned for Winter Haven, I discovered something neat about CSX rail lines in Polk County. The Jacksonville-based CSX runs two primary freight lines through peninsular Florida. They run roughly north-south. -- Polk County News Blog

There are seven Department of Transportation districts in the state of Florida. Polk belongs to District 1, which is headquarted in Bartow.

A 2004 state report on freight rail notes that District 1 was by far the top starting point for train freight shipments, as of 2003. -- Polk County News Blog

Update: Billy has more today, including a link to another map. I have another theory though. Perhaps the N/S line does in fact link up with the E/W line in Lakeland by Lake Wire. Then both lines share that main... Empirical Polk

I am grateful to Josh at Empirical Polk for his embellishment of my post on the CSX main lines that cross only in Polk County. I think Josh is entirely correct that the crossing I first cited is not the big crossing. Instead, and I’m waiting on CSX to confirm this, I think it actually happens dead in the heart of Lakeland, just off Lake Wire, not half-a-mile from where I work in downtown. - Polk County News Blog

Here are a couple of important numbers related to the CSX railroad logistics center planned for Winter Haven.

The first is 8,500. That’s the figure CSX and Winter Haven officials have often touted in predicting the how many jobs the center would create at full build-out. If correct, that number would make the CSX center Polk’s second largest employer, ahead of Publix and behind only the public schools. -- Polk County News Blog

Billy Townsend has a post up digging deeper into some of the major numbers associated with the CSX project. He's looking at three things: Jobs, Truck Traffic and Rail Traffic. First off, are the jobs numbers inflated, or more... -- Empirical Polk