By JOEL PHELPS | arkadelphian.com
An agreement between Weyerhaeuser and a publicly funded economic development commission was made official Wednesday on an option to purchase 60 acres of mostly undeveloped land near Gurdon, Arkansas.
If the deal is made, job officials have hopes to erect a transload facility that would put locally and regionally produced goods onto a section of the Arkansas Midland Railroad, a short line railroad that connects the Georgia-Pacific plant to the Union Pacific railroad.
During a special called meeting the Economic Development Corp. of Clark County gave unanimous approval for the agreement, which sets a 120-day deadline for surveys and feasibility studies before proceeding with the land purchase. Should all go according to plan, the EDCCC will spend an estimated $360,000 on the property, which is located south of the Georgia-Pacific plant and adjacent to an existing rail spur connected to the UP line.
It was noted that the land purchase doesn’t necessarily guarantee a transload facility would be built. That project would come with additional costs, with approval from the EDCCC in subsequent meetings. Two preliminary concepts that were presented Wednesday ranged from an estimated $471,000 for a five-railcar facility to $906,000 for a 16-railcar facility.
The nearest transload facility is at Jones Mill (Hot Spring County) on US Highway 270.
Should the EDCCC buy the property and later learn that a transload facility isn’t feasible, the acreage “would still be a valuable piece of property … purchased with the purpose of economic and industrial development,” Shelley Short, CEO of the Arkadelphia Regional Economic Development Alliance, told board members.
The land acquisition is necessary, Short later told arkadelphian.com, in order to “acquire property that would be conducive to future economic development in Clark County. That may result in a transload facility being built on the property to help serve our current, future and regional industries, or it may prove that this piece of property is better situated for other use. Either way, it would still be valuable for the county to own the property.”
Short added that the addition of a transload facility would give Clark County an edge in recruiting industry. “We would have the ability to market ourselves as having a rail-served site, which we currently do not have,” she said.