Skip to content
Share this article paywall-free.
WISE, Va. — Southwest Virginia appears poised for securing an inland port, an author of a state study said Thursday.
Robert Martinez, vice president of freight and economic development of Moffatt & Nichol, voiced optimism for the proposed project during the Southwest Economic Forum at the University of Virginia’s College at Wise.
Moffatt & Nichol is the engineering and consulting firm that issued a 2022 study about the potential for locating an inland port within the Mount Rogers Planning District.
The study looked at two regions as potential sites for an inland port, the Mount Rogers area which includes Bristol, Washington, Smyth and Wythe counties along the Interstate 81 corridor and the greater Lynchburg region, which lacks easy access to the interstate.
An inland port is an intermodal facility where freight is transferred from trucks to trains or vice versa. Each transfer is called a lift. Virginia currently operates one inland port, in Front Royal near the intersection of Interstates 81 and 66, about an hour west of Washington, D.C.
People are also reading…
“The central Virginia region is just not ready to go at this time. It just cannot sustain an inland port. Southwest is a different story,” Martinez said.
He displayed a map of intermodal locations across the eastern United States and highlighted a significant gap in this region.
“There is a huge part of the eastern United States that does not have an intermodal facility and you are in the middle of that hole,” he told about 300 people at the forum.
“A reasonable size is 50,000 lifts per year for a medium sized intermodal facility,” he said. “We did the market demand as part of this study and we are clearly in this ballpark. If you cannot get 20,000 lifts per year there is not a railroad that will listen to you. Railroads have to make money, that’s how they stay in business … We are well above that number in Southwest Virginia and there is a very small number of shippers.”
Over a 20-year period, the cumulative economic impact of a Southwest port is estimated to be $1.75 billion. It is expected to require a $50 million initial investment and create 1,370 permanent new jobs including 675 jobs directly at the inland port and 695 indirect jobs, according to the study. It would be owned by the Port of Virginia.
The port at Front Royal performed about 31,200 lifts in 2021 with a capacity for 78,000
Asked about the likelihood of the project, Martinez expressed enthusiasm.
“We’re going to do our best to see if collectively — between the Port of Virginia, Virginia Economic Development Partnership and local, regional entities here — if we can bring them together,” he said.
The service is essential for major economic growth, he said.
“Without intermodal service, there are a lot of investors that will not look at the region because they need to haul their traffic by rail. Rail is less expensive than moving by truck. Trucks are quicker. If you’ve got intermodal service, you are able to connect to Japan, to Europe, to Korea, wherever, in a single box. That is very attractive to a lot of investors,” Martinez said.
“Where we are, we have identified a couple of sites that will work for the placement of an intermodal facility in Southwest. It’s in the right geography. It’s got the right concentration of potential users. We need to find a way to fund that development and it would be a three-year project,” he added.
Martinez declined to identify either site nor would he confirm one is a parcel in Washington County that lies along the Norfolk-Southern mainline in the Oak Park industrial park. County officials previously announced their desire to locate the inland port on that site, located about three miles west of Abingdon and less than mile from Interstate 81 Exit 13.
“The first year would have to be engineering the site and the subsequent two years would be to construct the facility,” he said. “Obviously, very early in that process, in addition to launching the engineering, you’ve got to make sure that you line up the customers and that they sign on the dotted line. You can’t go to xyz manufacturer and they say to you, ‘if it were there we’d use it; we’d be very interested.’ Don’t do that. You have get xyz to commit to put their 8,000 boxes or 7,000 boxes, or whatever and reach a commercial deal with the Port of Virginia and Norfolk-Southern to move that freight.”
Martinez confirmed there is support and funding in both the state House and Senate to help move forward.
“I’m fairly convinced if nothing comes together at the end of June [state budget agreement], I think the governor is going to put something into his budget which would be in the middle of December with discussion by the General Assembly in the spring of 2024. Once the money is released you’re looking at a three-year to four-year delivery,” Martinez said.
Economic factors governing favorability include the distance the railroad has to haul the freight and the distance that trucks must travel from the manufacturer to the rail head to deliver products to go onto the rails.
“Every intermodal move involves a truck making a local delivery or a local pickup,” he said.
A key, he said, is the region served by the inland port in Southwest Virginia would include from East Tennessee to Pulaski County, Virginia
Railroads, he said are extremely capital intensive, typically seeing 17% to 22% of their operating revenues go into capital with about two-thirds of that cost maintaining its system.
Other inland port projects are underway in Montgomery, Alabama and another is being built in Gainesville, Georgia, near a port in Greer, South Carolina, but neither would be in direct competition with a port in Southwest Virginia, he said.
[email protected] — Twitter: @DMcGeeBHC
