K.C. Freight Center Nearing Reality
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Memphis
Kansas City officials and regional economic development leaders have called creation of the freight-handling center critical to making the city a major stop on the Canada-to-Mexico trade route.
"Shutting down an airport is a difficult decision for a city to make because of what the possibilities are in the future," City Councilwoman Teresa Loar, who heads an oversight committee that has been studying the airport issue, said at Monday night's meeting.
City officials say Richards-Gebaur, in southern Kansas City, has been losing $1.3 million a year. They contend the property can be better used as an intermodal freight center, where cargo containers are shifted between trucks and trains.
A spokesman for Kansas City Southern, which is now a partner with a Mexican railroad, said the company hopes to start the project during this year's construction season.
"This is a very positive step today," said the spokesman, Bill Galligan. "We think it's a great step for Kansas City. We think it's a wonderful project."
Before work can start, he said, the financing through revenue bonds must be completed.
"Of course, this is all pending FAA approval of what's been agreed to by the city," he said.
The city will lease the land to the Kansas City Port Authority, which will then lease it to Kansas City Southern. The railroad is to use 316 acres to start and possibly an additional 181 acres later.
The railroad plans to spend $35 million on the first phase, he said, and has three years to decide whether to go ahead with the second phase. That second phase would cost up to $35 million.
Kansas City Southern will start paying rent on the first tract no later than June 1.
Tim McDermott, a vocal opponent of the project, was in the audience at the council meeting.
"It's not over until they paint the yellow X's on the runway," he said afterward.
A yellow X is a warning to pilots not to land because the field or runway is closed.
"They still have the FAA procedures to go through," McDermott said.
Objections to the project have come from pilots who use the airport, and from neighbors worried about increased traffic and possible drug smuggling.
Councilman Ken Bacchus said the shipments to the intermodal facility would be sealed and drug smuggling would be difficult.
"What was clear to me," he said, "was that NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement) is alive and well. We have just ignored it in this city."
