FORT WORTH, Texas — BNSF Railway has officially announced its plans to develop a massive logistics hub on the outskirts of Phoenix.
The project, quietly in the works for several years, will be built on a 4,321-acre property in northwest Maricopa County, the railroad said yesterday. The hub, adjacent to the Phoenix Subdivision in Wittmann, Ariz., will accommodate the transportation, storage, and distribution of goods and materials throughout the Phoenix area.
It will include a 1,770-acre intermodal terminal, an adjacent 1,420-acre logistics park that will provide sites for warehouse and distribution facilities, and a 1,131-acre logistics center featuring direct rail-served sites that will support local industry.
This is the first time BNSF has combined a logistics park, which serves intermodal customers, and a logistics center, which are multi-commodity sites for carload and bulk customers.
BNSF currently operates logistics parks in Chicago, Kansas City, and Alliance, Texas. Its logistics centers include operations in Oklahoma City; Sweetwater and Cleveland, Texas; Hudson, Colo.; and Fontana, Calif.
“As BNSF and the customers we serve adapt to shifting marketplace needs, evolving supply chains, and significant technological advancements, we identified a need for additional rail capacity in the Phoenix metro area,” Jon Gabriel, vice president of service design, said in a statement. “Arizona is an important region to expand and advance our intermodal network capacity. This is a long-term investment and commitment to our customers and consumers in Arizona and beyond.”
BNSF hopes to begin construction on the project next year and is eyeing an initial opening date in 2028.
Co-locating warehouse and distribution centers with the intermodal terminal significantly reduces the distance of dray moves for containers and trailers, BNSF says.
BNSF is evaluating whether, after the opening of the few facility, it will continue to use its current Phoenix intermodal terminal in Glendale, which is 10 rail miles from the center of Arizona’s largest city. Wittmann is 36 rail miles from downtown Phoenix. The Glendale terminal has not yet reached capacity, the railroad says.
BNSF said it will be working closely with Maricopa County, neighboring municipalities, and regional stakeholders over the coming months as it aims to move the project through the review and permitting process.
The size of the new logistics hub will rival BNSF’s proposed $1.5 billion Barstow International Gateway in California. That facility, which will serve as a sorting and transloading hub for international containers, is 4,500 acres.
BNSF did not release a cost estimate for the Phoenix project.
Note: Story updated at 2:50 p.m. on June 19 with information on the status of current BNSF Phoenix intermodal terminal in Glendale, Ariz. Updated at 11:43 a.m. on June 20 to remove reference to Suprise, Ariz. Although BNSF has moved permitting to Maricopa County, instead of Surprise, Ariz., the project is still planned for the same location in Wittmann.
Do y’all think that UP’s lack of interest on the Wellton-Phoenix line invited this intermodal competition from BNSF???
So if this new center has the same or near depth of service as Barstow, why do Barstow?
To handle traffic going north through central California and across the the west to Omaha and beyond.
A nice bit of window dressing. After 30 years of trying, they need to figure how to finally fix El Paso.
Look for BNSF to “take back” the Arizona and California railroad because of this development.
You read my mind. Ever since BNSF announced this facility a few years back. I figured that the AZRC would eventually disappear.
They’ll have to buy it back from Genesee & Wyoming, who currently own the ARZC.
It would be a good “buy back” for them, as the ARZC does little more than interchange with – y’all guessed it – the BNSF. It does, however, handle right around 12,000 carloads per year. If they “buy back” the ARZC, they would also pick up more customers, as there are quite a few serviced by ARZC. Especially Rose Arce Farms, one of the nation’s largest egg producers.