"We believe The Allen Group has the development skills and experience to help a new BNSF Logistics Park put the Kansas City region on the international map," said Vann Cunningham, BNSF's assistant vice president of economic development.
BNSF and The Allen Group will now begin working together to develop a 1,000-acre Logistics Park near Gardner. BNSF has already purchased nearly 800 acres of the undeveloped property, and has options to purchase the remaining acreage.
BNSF expects to complete design plans for the intermodal facility in the coming months and has begun the permitting and review process with local, state and federal agencies in order to begin construction in 2007. The intermodal facility is expected to begin operating in late 2008.
A Logistics Park is a freight development concept pioneered by BNSF in which distribution centers and warehouses are developed immediately adjacent to an intermodal hub center. It is considered a leading edge supply chain concept because it helps significantly shorten local truck trips between the intermodal hub center and the distribution facilities.
The first two logistics parks in the country were developed by BNSF in partnership with third-party developers near Fort Worth, Texas, and Chicago and have helped create thousands of new jobs and several billion dollars in economic development. (PRNewswire)
