| Williamson: All not lost on funding for Cates Landing |
By: John Brannon, Staff Reporter
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Posted: Monday, March 8, 2010 9:10 pm
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By JOHN BRANNON
Messenger Staff Reporter
Although disappointing to Tennessee proponents, a federal decision not to award a $35 million grant for development of the Cates Landing riverport project near Tiptonville is not the end of the line.
Jimmy Williamson of Dyersburg said he is working with Congressman John Tanner and Tennessee’s U.S. Sens. Bob Corker and Lamar Alexander to acquire alternative funding.
Williamson is manager of Dyersburg Electric System and chairman of Northwest Tennessee Regional Port Authority, which manages the fledging riverport, “It’s looking good. Very good,” Williamson said early today.
Two weeks ago, William-son received word that the U.S. Department of Transportation had turned down the Port Authority application for a $35 million TIGER grant.
TIGER is an acronym for Transportation Investment Generating Economic Re-covery.
$$ for Indy
The federal DOT had $1.3 billion in TIGER funds to distribute as grants. A spokesman said about 1,400 applications requesting a total of $57 billion were received from every state in the union, but only 53 were approved. A walking track in downtown Indianapolis is an example of approved projects. The City of Chicago was approved for $100 million; the City of New Orleans was approved for $55 million.
Planners say the Cates Landing project would generate 400 to 500 jobs during the construction phase and up to 5,000 other jobs in the first 10 years thereafter.
Whether the Indianapolis walking track would generate jobs over a sustained period could not be determined.
Investments
A total of $14.9 million has been invested in the Cates Landing project to date by federal, state, local governments and other funding sources. The U.S. Corps of Engineers committed $4.3 million to the design engineering and dredging of the harbor.
“If you want everything first class — including roads (in the industrial park) and a five mile rail system — it’s about $35 million,” Williamson said. “We can get it up and going and create jobs for $22 million, but to have everything first class, it’s about $35 million.
He said the dredging of the Cates Landing harbor is almost finished. The work is being done by the river division of Choctaw Transportation Co. of Dyersburg, which won a contract awarded by U.S. Corps of Engineers.
Also, Williamson said, riverport authorities are talking with the Cooper T. Smith Corp. of Mobile, Ala., about managing the riverport.
“It’s a company that’s been in business over 100 years,” he said. “It’s family owned and does business worldwide. We certainly hope somebody of their stature would run the landing. If we can come to terms with them, it would be good to have somebody who already knows the ups and downs of the business.”
In good shape
Williamson said it would have been great to acquire the TIGER grant, that it would have made things easier for the port authority.
“But nothing on this project has been easy for us,” he said. “So we are working with our congressional delegation on the upcoming uransportation bill and other avenues to secure some funding.”
In fact, the riverport project is in great shape, even better off than it was a year ago. It has a harbor that is almost completed, “and that is a great asset.”
“The Corps of Engineers found funding we didn’t have to match to make the harbor two feet deeper than originally planned,” he said.
And if the port authority can get federal funds for its project, it will certainly accept them. “The more governmental funding we can put into this, the faster the port authority can start returning assets to the counties (that contributed partial fundng).
“Jobs will be made available. We’ll have a cash flow coming from ongoing operations. We can be self funding.”
Published in The Messenger 3.9.10
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