Levelland’s new rail park under construction has companies waiting

Persistence is paying off in a big way for Levelland, Texas, suggests the dust flying above a 300-acre tract on the south side of Highway 114 east of the city, the Lubbock Avalanche Journal reports. Construction is in the early phases of the Levelland Industrial Rail Park, which already has two companies signed on the dotted line on a site that's expected to attract $100 million in capital improvements and 1,000 new jobs to the Hockley County seat.

The project grew out of
an idea two years ago to build a railroad siding from the West Texas &
Lubbock line on 40 acres for one company, said Dave Quinn, executive director
of the Levelland Economic Development Corp.

"We were going to
spend almost $1 million for one company," Quinn said, adding the idea
quickly had officials thinking about how much more could be done with more
money and a bigger piece of real estate. Getting more money is where the
persistence came in. The economic development agency made several pitches for
grants from the U.S. Economic Development Administration with no luck – until
the recession hit and the Obama administration and Congress signed off on
stimulus packages meant to promote infrastructure and putting people to work.

The estimated price of
the park is $8.6 million, paid for with a combination of $3.3 million in
federal stimulus funds, $1.5 million from Levelland cash reserves and $3.8 million
in bonds that will be initially repaid with city sales tax revenues until tax
increment financing district revenues become available from the site.

The $3.3 million for
Levelland’s rail park came in June with one big requirement – it had to be
spent in 120 days. Ultimately, the government accepted Levelland’s request to
commit the money within that time.

When completed, the site
will have acreage to accommodate 13 businesses along 21,000 track feet, Quinn
said, with no road crossings inside the park. That, the economic development
official said, is a benefit for trucks operating in the yard and for the trains
waiting to be loaded and unloaded. In industrial parks where the tracks cross
paved roads, sometimes railway cars need to be uncoupled to keep the roadways
free for trucks.

Plans show highway access
to the east on roads to be built out to FM 3261, or a loop road, Progressive
Place, that will open to Texas 114.

"We found out you
can’t just draw a circle in the dirt," Quinn said, adding that engineers
from Lubbock-based Parkhill, Smith & Cooper have kept in touch with both
Permian Basin Railways – the Iowa Holdings subsidiary that owns the West Texas
& Lubbock line – and Burlington Northern Santa Fe as they drafted the
plans.

The project also found an
unusual benefit from the recession, in the kind of ties they’ll be able to use
in the rail yard. Instead of wooden ties, which have a life of about five to
seven years, Quinn said, the track will be laid with concrete ties, which
should last about 15 years before maintenance is needed. Those ties became
available when the struggling economy forced another company to cancel a
project.

"We’ve got something
now that’s twice as good," said Chris Roberts, vice chairman of the
economic development corporation board. He and Quinn also acknowledged luck and
timing enabled them to get the project going.

Some of it, Roberts said,
was in the luck that the Levelland Hockley County ethanol plant wasn’t
shuttered as the economy faded. It survives, Roberts said, because it’s a local
process – it uses locally grown grain and sorghum, and it sells its product
within the region. Had the plant closed, he said, there was a good chance
they’d have lost the rail line, and the chance to develop the park.

Quinn said another key to
success has been to use both social and traditional media to keep Hockley
County residents informed about the progress of the rail park and other
economic development efforts, because "even the waitress in the diner can
be an ambassador for us."

Quinn jokes about the
timing of Warren Buffett’s purchase of BNSF in November – a move the mega-investor
called "a bet on the country."

"He’s cashing in on
our bet," Quinn said, noting that rail traffic from Levelland would
connect with the BNSF line at Lubbock. "And we felt we’re moving on the
right bet." Movement toward the rail park has prompted several steps
forward in community investment.

While the economic
development corporation was chasing federal dollars last year, Hockley County
voters approved a $15-million bond issue for construction of a new multi-use
arena and banquet facility. And a hometown company, Independent Electric, broke
ground in December on a $500,000 warehouse project at the rail park that will
include classroom space for training electricians.

At the time, owners Janet
and David Duffy said, the new facility would be used to provide storage for heavy
equipment as well as training. The business now employs 21 people and could add
three or four more with the move.

The other early signer is
Tex-Rail Commodities, a new division of Brinkley, Ark.-based American
Cottonseed Network, which plans to build a $2.2-million cottonseed processing
plant in the rail park. From Levelland, the processed cottonseed would be
shipped to California for use as dairy feed.

"Because of the
decline in cotton acreage in the east, they want to be in the heart of cotton
country, and that’s here," Quinn said. "They want to bring in trains
and load about 100 cars at a time."

And he’s quick to tally
up the finer points of economic impact on the city, saying, "We don’t have
a truck stop." That’s important, because, he added, it takes four truckloads
to fill one car, and a 100-car train will take between five and seven days to
load.

Roberts said as many as
25 trains a year are expected to load at the cottonseed processing facility.