Polk County Rail Hub

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

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

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

This will probably spark some discussion.

CSX expects its new “integrated logistics center” in Winter Haven to add 7 or 8 freight trains per day to the 8-12 that currently pass through downtown Lakeland. That’s according to CSX spokesman Gary Sease.

It’s also twice as many as the 3-4 trains per day talked about recently during a meeting of the East Polk Committee of 100. -- Polk County News Blog

In late 2002 and 2003, CSX approached Lakeland about building rail a hub that sounds similar to, but smaller than, the one proposed for Winter Haven, according to city records.

The hub would have served as a distribution point for an estimated 220,000 vehicles per year. The cars would have been shipped in by train and then trucked out.

CSX wanted to build the hub on a large piece of property it owns along Kathleen Road, just northwest of the former Florida Tile site. That’s near the spot where CSX’s two main peninsular Florida lines merge. -- Polk County News Blog

Here’s Townsend’s email:

“According to information we continue to get from CSX, there will only be 3-4 additional trains per day as a result of the ILC. I’m not sure if you’re misinterpreting what [CSX spokesman] Gary Sease has said. Or, I’ve also heard there may be additional trains coming through Polk County, as a result of transferring most freight traffic from the A-line to the S-line, but those trains are not associated with the ILC.

I’m sure you want this information to be accurate, just as Winter Haven officials do. Thanks for checking this out. – joy “ -- Polk County News Blog

We’ve spent a lot of time in the last two weeks looking at the CSX intermodal center planned for Winter Haven. The culmination of that process can be seen in this Tribune story, which ran on Saturday. Whether or not you’ve been following the CSX plan, I encourage you to check out the story. -- Polk County News Blog

Ocala can also expect significant train traffic increases because of the new Winter Haven CSX center and the rail realignment it is causing. Officials there are looking into a plan to reroute the increased CSX train traffic out of the city’s core -- Polk County News Blog

I spoke today with Fred Wise, manager of the Florida Department of Transportation’s rail office.

He is one of the point men in the ongoing negotiations with CSX over the proposed $491 million deal that would reorganize freight rail traffic in the state, create an Orlando commuter rail corridor and bring the giant CSX integrated logistics hub to Winter Haven.

Wise, like CSX, emphasizes that the deal isn’t done yet. It’s a highly complicated agreement, running to hundreds and hundreds of pages. There’s no formal timetable for cementing it.

But what I found particularly interesting about the conversation was the difference in how the state and CSX have treated Ocala and how they’ve treated Lakeland. Both cities can expect extensive and comparable increases in train traffic. -- Polk County News Blog

Takeway line from Tom Palmer’s story: “We want to evaluate the impacts along State Road 60 and beyond State Road 60 as well,” County Manager Mike Herr said. “We don’t know what it will do to the transportation network.”

That’s quite an admission. But the truly important aspect of the story came right at the end. An official with the Central Florida Regional Planning Council said it is still possible for local officials to trigger what’s called the “development of regional impact” process, which is used to help plan large, intense projects. CSX and the city of Winter Haven have avoided that process, which often takes years, by splitting the project in two, so that the key first phase falls below the DRI threshold for acreage. The state signed off on that decision. -- Polk County News Blog

There’s not too much to report from the big, closed CSX-Lakeland business community/city management meeting. Rick Hood, the CSX official in charge of the Winter Haven rail hub site, was at the meeting, which was held at the Lakeland Area Chamber of Commerce. -- Polk County News Blog

This is the day of the now famously private meeting between CSX and staffers from Lakeland government and business groups set for this afternoon at the Chamber of Commerce, I’m told.

With that in mind, I thought I’d write a little about a conversation I had last week with state Sen. J.D. Alexander, R-Lake Wales, for a story I was writing about the new USF-Lakeland campus. The discussion eventually drifted into the general future of Polk County and some of the vital transportation and growth questions facing the county today. -- Polk County News Blog

We blogged about this yesterday, but The Ledger has a fuller account today of Thursday’s meeting between CSX and city government and business group officials. It seems that CSX has scaled back somewhat its projected increase in daily trains. - Polk County News Blog

C.C. “Doc” Dockery, the Lakeland business man who convinced Florida voters to enshrine high speed rail into the Florida constitution in 2000 and then watched as Jeb Bush convinced them to de-shrine it in 2004, has weighed in strongly on the CSX rail hub project.

Dockery, who is married to state Sen. Paula Dockery, has sent a letter to Polk County Manager Mike Herr asking that the county direct a consultant it is hiring to broadly review the project’s proposed impacts.

Here are the key elements of the letter: -- Polk County News Blog

Polk County Commissioner Randy Wilkinson says he will raise the issue of forcing a “development of regional impact” process on the CSX rail hub planned for Winter Haven, possibly at the next commission meeting.

Until now, the project, which is located within the Winter Haven city limits, has been exempt from the extensive DRI process because the hub falls just below the 320-acre size threshold. However, the full CSX project that Winter Haven business and government officials are backing so strongly is a 1,250-acre hub/warehouse/distribution center. The 318-acre hub is just its first phase. By splitting the hub and distribution center, CSX has avoided the DRI process. And CSX project has been able to move like relative lightning toward approval. It has been subject to review only by the Winter Haven City Commission, which badly wants it. -- Polk County News Blog

You may have heard that the Polk County Commission plans to hire a consultant to review the regional implications of the CSX project. Well, a copy of the “scope of services” agreement for the consultant – what he or she will be asked to do - is out. -- Polk County News Blog

I think this is important to note in the CSX debate.

The Ledger had a story published Thursday that said this:

“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.”

Unless something has changed, and Winter Haven spokeswoman Joy Townsend told me today that it has not, the job numbers cited here are simply wrong. -- Polk County News Blog

I’m not the only Tribune reporter writing about CSX these days. My colleagues Lindsay Peterson and Yvette Hammett have both recently produced some worthy reporting on the company and its interactions with local governments.

Peterson’s story focused on how CSX can essentially name whatever price it wants to maintain rail crossings. She quotes Polk County’s own Steve Logan, who works in the county’s traffic engineering division.

Hammett’s story focused on Brandon’s efforts to create a “quiet zone” in the area. Lakeland hopes to create a similar quiet zone for its downtown. But it won’t be easy or cheap. -- Polk County News Blog

PCNB has obtained a paper copy of the minutes from April 19’s closed meeting between CSX and various Lakeland business and government officials at the Lakeland Chamber of Commerce building to discuss the impacts of the planned rail hub and distribution center south of Winter Haven.

The minutes read a lot like the descriptions of the meeting participants gave to local press. It was mostly informational, full of details that, quite frankly, were available in the Tribune’s April 7th story.

There are a couple of noteworthy elements, though, including a full list of who attended.

I have added, where I know, information about who these people are. -- Polk County News Blog

County Commissioner Randy Wilkinson is about to up the ante in the CSX debate.

He has prepared a letter he wants his fellow county commissioners to send to the state Department of Community Affairs, urging it to reconsider its decision not to impose development of regional impact status on the first phase of the planned CSX rail hub/distribution center south of Winter Haven.

Here’s the text of the letter, addressed to Tom Pelham, secretary of the Florida Department of Community Affairs: -- Polk County News Blog

But CSX isn’t the only rail company planning to build a major distribution center/office hub in Polk County.

Flagler Development’s Lakeland Central Park would bring up to 6 million square feet of commercial development to 724 acres just off the Polk Parkway southwest of town. It is a development of regional impact, which means it is being extensively reviewed. (By comparison, the 1,250-acre CSX distribution center is not because the company and Winter Haven have split the project into two smaller pieces.) -- Polk County News Blog

For the first time, a local government in the Bay area is formally objecting to the fast-track approval process of the massive CSX rail hub and distribution center planned for south of Winter Haven.

That hub is the backbone of a half-billion deal put together last year by former Gov. Jeb Bush’s administration that would reorganize freight rail traffic throughout the state and bring commuter rail to the Orlando area. The Port of Tampa has also expressed interest in tapping into the hub and the burgeoning central Florida distribution industry, generally. -- Polk County News Blog

State Sen. Paula Dockery, R-Lakeland, on Friday entered the CSX hub/development of regional impact debate with some pretty strong words. Like a majority of the Polk County Commission, she thinks the Winter Haven project should be treated as a development of regional impact from its inception and subjected to a thorough regional review.

“The fact that it’s not going through a better process, and people are just being told to deal with it, is not proper planning,” Dockery said during a phone interview, calling the CSX center “a major regional project.” -- Polk County News Blog

Momentum toward creation of the $8 billion Heartland Parkway has ground to a halt, largely because of the change of Florida governors, said Rick Dantzler, spokesman for a group of landowners pushing for the highway.... Polk County News Blog

I would argue that the central tension at the heart of the CSX/development of regional impact debate is this: Winter Haven, CSX and Haven-area economic developers sell the rail center as a single 1,250-acre, 8,500-job producing, tax-base expanding behemoth of a project. But they want to regulate it as a 318-acre, 200-job run-of-the-mill industrial site.....Polk County News Blog

For the record, Polk County Manager Mike Herr has read the letter exchange between CSX and the state Department of Community Affairs informally declaring that the 318-acre CSX hub need not undergo a regional review....Polk County News Blog

Fast forward to 2007 and the CSX debate. I had a series of questions I wanted to ask Greene about the city’s approach to approving the project. Through his spokeswoman, Greene on Monday declined to talk to me. He referred me to strategic initiatives director Pete Chichetto or Assistant City Manager Dale Smith. -- Polk County News Blog

The Lake Wales City Commission Tuesday night unanimously added to the growing political pressure for a full-scale regional review of the entire 1,250-acre CSX rail hub and distribution center proposal.

I wasn’t able to attend the meeting, but City Manager Tony Otte confirmed the vote for me in a phone message. I’m not sure if there was much discussion.

This leads nicely into a discussion I had earlier this week with Jon Peck, a spokesman with the state’s Department of Community Affairs. Polk County News Blog

Hood spent much of his statement describing how the CSX project will help ease national and state truck traffic in two ways:

1) By taking freight containers off trucks and placing them onto trains for cross-country hauls to Winter Haven.

2) Serving as the catalyst for a half-billion dollar plan that will create Orlando-area commuter rail. And just in case you don’t realize how completely linked that plan is to the CSX hub, Hood noted that commuter rail line “doesn’t become available” until the new hub is functioning. ...Polk County News Blog

Rick Dantzler, the public face of the group of landowners pushing for the Heartland Parkway, praised the Polk County Commission Monday for calling on the state to force the planned CSX hub in Winter Haven to go through a full regional review.... Polk County News Blog

If you’ve been following the reporting on this at all, you’ll know that this is a big deal, with implications far beyond one project in Winter Haven. Here’s a Tribune story that ran a couple of months ago giving some detailed background on the project and its approval process and another story that ran Tuesday illustrating how the CSX project and others play into Polk’s regional tensions. - Polk County News Blog

So what changed? What caused the state to revoke its informal clearance.

The new letter cites the additional 20 acres purchased for the project’s roadway access to State Road 60 and a “project map or plan, which, as submitted to the City of Winter Haven, depicts a Phase II of the project to be located on land contiguous to the 318-acre parcel.”

What’s a little peculiar is that both of those issues were touched on in CSX’s first successful request for a “clearance letter” a little more than a year ago.

The first issue – the connector road - was mentioned in the original letter only obliquely, with no reference to acreage. But it was mentioned. The second issue – the second phase - was dealt with pretty overtly. I’ve written about this before. CSX said it wasn’t sure what – or even if – it would develop on the 930-acre second piece. That was enough for the state to grant the informal clearance letter. -- Polk County News Blog

For the masochists among you, here it is, PCNB’s collected reporting to date on the massive rail hub and distribution center proposed for southeast Winter Haven.

I count 37 posts in just less than three months. Here also are links to the first development of regional impact clearance letter sought and received from the state by CSX last year, the second clearance letter received in Apriland the new letter received Tuesday revoking that clearance and making a full regional review of the project likely. -- Polk County News Blog

Here’s a cut and paste copy of the passage in Florida’s DRI laws that deals with Preliminary Development Agreements. Here’s a link to entire DRI chapter.

8. The agreement shall include a disclosure by the developer and all the owners of the land in the total proposed development of all land or development within 5 miles of the total proposed development in which they have an interest and shall describe such interest. -- Polk County News Blog

Remember all the commotion last week about how the state determined that the massive CSX hub planned for Winter Haven is probably a development of regional impact and should go through a time-consuming regional review? Remember all the talk about how it would delay the project for two years or more?

Not so much.

The Winter Haven Chamber of Commerce has posted an excerpt from a new DRI status letter from the state Department of Community Affairs. (That makes four such letters in just over a year.) --- Polk County News Blog

A group of homeowners in Sundance, the small rural subdivision adjacent to the massive proposed CSX rail hub and distribution center in Winter Haven are seeking an injunction to keep the company from moving forward with its plans.

The 26-page injunction request, filed on behalf of about 20 area residents, says the CSX plan is incompatible with the character and zoning of their area and should be halted.

The group is represented by Lakeland-based lawyer A. Brent Geohagan. CSX and the city of Winter Haven, which owns the land where the hub would be located, have 20 days to respond to the suit under Florida law. -- Polk County News Blog

The ad hoc Lakeland government and business group focusing on the Lakeland impacts of the proposed CSX hub in Winter Haven will hold its first open forum Tuesday at 3 p.m. in the Lakeland City Commission chambers.

CSX officials are expected to attend. The meeting is open to the public. -- Polk County News Blog

As the rest of us puzzle through what the state Department of Community Affairs’ willingness to enter a “preliminary development agreement” with the state would mean for construction of the new CSX hub in Winter Haven, City Manager David Greene seems to have a pretty clear idea.

In an email sent to his city commission on June 6, Greene wrote: “DCA is apparently willing to “Fast Track” a Preliminary Development Agreement with CSX. This will allow the Project to move forward on Phase 1 without a [development of regional impact review].”

•

I recently requested about a month’s worth of CSX emails from Greene’s office. They provide a look inside a city government that isn’t very communicative, at least not to me. I’ll be posting more about them. -- Polk County News Blog

1) CSX officials met with Florida Lt. Gov. Jeff Kottkamp on June 5, the same day that the state Department of Community Affairs offered to allow CSX to enter an agreement allowing the company to start building its massive Winter Haven rail hub before a regional review of impacts is completed. That decision was reached just a few days after DCA ruled that CSX would have to go through such a review. Many critics have seen the June 5 decision as a way to get around the purpose of the review. -- Polk County News Blog

There have been rumors floating around recently that CSX has purchased or is looking to purchase land in other Central Florida locations north or south of Winter Haven as possible alternative sites to the proposed hub.

CSX corporate spokesman Gary Sease says this is not true. -- Polk County News Blog

(Note: I've only included the "things that don't exist yet." Please see the article for Townsend's thoughts.)

For a layman like me, it sure seems like there’s a lot going on with the CSX-Winter Haven hub deal but not much happening.

Let’s list all the things we keep talking about that don’t exist yet:

1) A preliminary development agreement (PDA) between CSX and the state that would allow CSX to begin construction at the hub site before a development of regional impact review is complete.....

2) A final deal between the state and CSX detailing the $491 million rail realignment, which was announced last summer about this time amid much fanfare. ....

3) A resolution of the lawsuit filed by neighbors to halt the CSX hub if it begins to happen....

4) A strong position from Gov. Charlie Crist on this entire rail proposal. Jeb Bush was one of its driving forces....

That’s quite a few shoes left to drop. And while there’s no indication any of these deals are in any real jeopardy, they do continue to linger unconsummated. Something is keeping all of this from falling into place in the manner envisioned a year or more ago. Of course, that could change tomorrow.... Polk County News Blog

I had a good conversation Wednesday afternoon with Fred Wise, head of the Florida Department of Transportation’s rail office.....

Wise said good progress is being made on the details of the $491 million deal that would realign CSX’s freight rail traffic in Florida and provide commuter rail to Orlando. The Haven hub is crucial to that plan.

It’s been a year since the deal was announced, and it still hasn’t been consummated. But Wise said that doesn’t mean the deal is in jeopardy. On the contrary, he said many difficult details have been resolved. But negotiators are still working through environmental research, surveys, details of operating agreements with CSX and the massive sale contract with CSX.

“There are a lot of loose ends,” Wise said. ... -- Polk County News Blog