$1.16M Land Purchase to be Developed into Industrial Rail Park

WILLMAR, Minn. – The city of Willmar approved a purchase for land to be developed into an industrial rail park.

A city in Minnesota approved a purchase agreement with Midwest and Bluegrass Rail for land in the Willmar Industrial Park. Totaling 145 acres, the executive director of Kandiyohi County and Willmar’s Economic Development Commission, Aaron Backman commented that the purchase “is a culmination of a lot of work over the last 12 years to have a successful rail area that utilizes the Wye.”

The West Central Tribune reported that the Willmar Rail Park “will be owned and managed by MB Rail, a full-service company formed in 2019 to provide rail and logistics in the Midwest”. Once the park is built, MB Rail will be able to sell or lease park acreage to other businesses.

The current plan for the future rail park includes a “rail loop that comes off the Willmar Wye, with four spurs going into the park to accommodate businesses” and it will use the “decommissioned airport runway for staging purposes in loading and unloading rail cars.”

A representative for MB Rail, COO Brian Miller, addressed the city of Willmar on June 5^th and explained that “MB Rail owns and operates short-line railroads in Kentucky, Ohio, and Pennsylvania to provide first/last mile rail service to freight customers, and offers rail-truck transloading services for freight shippers without direct rail spur access at its terminals in Kentucky, Ohio, and Missouri.”  His associate, Brendan Keener, positioned MB Rail as an “intermediary” between the rail industry and those who want to do business with rail but who many not have the industry knowledge and/or funds. 

No construction date has been announced yet. More information on the Willmar Industrial Park can be found here.