Although faced with a $5-$6 million budgetary shortfall resulting, according to project head Brad Baird of Anderson Perry construction company, primarily from “unprecedented inflation” and the rising cost of materials, work continues at a brisk pace on the Treasure Valley Reload Center in Nyssa, OR.
Currently, the project, which was conceptualized more than a decade ago to expand shipping options from the onion-growing region of Idaho-E. Oregon, has seen the completion of necessary earthwork and the delivery of some 20,000 feet of rail that will be installed adjacent to an existing Union Pacific line. The center will have a 13,000-ft. spur, and principals in the product said rail laying could begin in about two weeks.
The budget shortfall, Baird went on to explain, comes with the center’s building.
“We’ll be able to finish everything else with our original budget,” he said. “And we’re working now for additional funding.” Baird said the site should be ready for the building in two to three months, moving the operational date to sometime midwinter.
“The project is proceeding very well,” he said, noting that the budget issue is not an uncommon one.
“Right now it’s standard for entities to ask for additional funding,” he said.
Greg Smith, executive director of the Malheur County Development Corporation that is overseeing the project, concurred and said, “If you do the calculations, the percentage [of additional funding necessary] is in line with the national average with inflation. We are caught up in the economy.”
Baird and Smith’s comments came during a press conference held on June 14, with Malheur County Development Commission President Grant Kitamura heading the presentation and providing a brief history of the project from conception to its current status.
He reminded the press in attendance that funding from the passage of Oregon HB 2017 that earmarked $26 million for the center was secured in 2017, and he said the reload facility is more viable today because of skyrocketing fuel prices, the shortage of drivers, and problems caused by supply chain issues.
Smith also made clear that of the $26 million, plus an additional $3 million from the Oregon Legislature in 2021, $13.4 million has been used with a balance of $15.6 remaining.
Smith outlined project requirements to date, saying the $13.4 million was used to acquire the real estate adjacent to Union Pacific, convert the land from agriculture to industrial, obtain an industrial track agreement with Union Pacific and collaborate for service to the facility. The project entered into an agreement with Americold and also retained Anderson Perry, he said.
“In no way is development stalled, and by the end of the project we will have the infrastructure in place to accommodate rail, trucks and industry who wants to locate here,” Smith said.
Recapping the project’s history, Smith, who is also an Oregon state representative, has been a part of the reload center effort since the idea first arose. He and Cliff Bentz, U.S representative for Oregon, played key roles in designing a bill that was ultimately passed by the Oregon legislature and signed by Gov. Kate Brown in 2017. The $5.3 billion state transportation bill earmarked some $26 million for the Nyssa facility.
Designed to serve the region’s onion industry as well as numerous other commodities, the center’s purpose is to provide onion shippers and others to be competitive in various markets across the United States.”
Smith said recently, “The Treasure Valley Reload Center’s goal is to provide an advantage to valley shippers while taking trucks off of the road. With ongoing turbulence in the trucking industry, diesel prices skyrocketing and the loss of drivers over previous years, the Treasure Valley Reload Center is needed now more than ever.”
