Staff photo / R. Michael Semple A train rests on the track in June inside the Ohio Commerce Center in Lordstown, where an intermodal facility could be located in the future.

There’s a coordinated initiative to unleash the Valley’s economic potential through autonomous and connected mobility, new and innovative technologies that are disrupting the way freight and commerce are moved from points A to B.

Coined Logistics and Vehicle Electrification (LIVE) Zone, it’s a proposal that reimagines how materials are transported by creating a new, smart and connected infrastructure ecosystem to fortify and advance manufacturing, distribution and warehouse facilities in an effort to become a leader in vehicle electrification and clean energy.

The effort stumbled a bit last year with an unsuccessful application for millions of federal dollars to put the plan into action, but officials regrouped, took the loss as a learning experience and went back to work to refine the endeavor led by Eastgate Regional Council of Governments.

“What is important to recognize here is when we applied for it last year, we did not have the final report finished,” Eastgate’s Executive Director Jim Kinnick said. “We can’t control the timing of when they ask for the application to be submitted, so we put our best foot forward trying to focus on the whole area and the region.”

While debriefing with the U.S. Department of Transportation after the bid for the Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity (RAISE) grant, “they pointed out the weakness — we don’t have an end-user project,” Kinnick said.

“(They said) ‘This is all innovative thinking, it would really move the area forward,’ but they wanted more project development,” Kinnick said.

GETTING TO WORK

So Kinnick, Eastgate’s Director of Transportation and Infrastructure Stephen Zubyk and others, including Emil Liszniansky with Envision Group, the expert firm hired to help, got to work to develop a stronger application by focusing on a project rather than an idea.

“The first piece was just being a little more focused on our ask. There is quite a bit involved with the LIVE Zone and we had kind of a little bit of everything last year, so we’re really trying to focus on a phase one that really meets the needs of the business community,” Liszniansky said. “We’re going through the process now (of) getting some feedback on what would be the most beneficial.”

What rose to the top was an intermodal facility for container freight, which was one of the components in the first grant application.

“Having that would be a big benefit to the manufacturing companies in the area as well as somebody who is involved in logistics and distribution,” Liszniansky said. “So we’re trying to get a little more intel on what might be the appropriate size, scope, location of that intermodal container freight facility.”

At the same time, they are trying to get local private and public sector buy-in and support.

“If we have companies standing up, writing letters of support, maybe even advocating with us for this grant, it certainly checks a box that you are building a project that is going to move the region forward,” Kinnick said.

Now with a completed plan of action, “We see there is $200 million in total implementation costs over three phases … having that buy-in, (knowing) what does the public sector want, what does the private sector want, allows us to focus,” Zubyk said.

It’s expected the next RAISE funding cycle would open in early 2024. Award announcements would be several months later, likely before the presidential election.

“From a conceptual standpoint, the big picture … it’s an infrastructure project and we’re applying for infrastructure funds, but at the end of the day this is really an economic development initiative,” Liszniansky said. “That is what we are trying to create here, help develop shovel-ready sites, help entice private investments, help support the business we have in the area, help them grow and stay and help new ones come to enhance the supply chains and enhance the workforce.”

LOCATION

The concept capitalizes on the Valley’s location — at the intersection of multiple modes of transportation and midway between the Cleveland and Pittsburgh. The region’s proximity to Chicago and New York also cannot be understated.

Take this amazing fact, for example: “Nineteen percent of the freight by tonnage that moves across the country — rail or highway — comes through the LIVE Zone,” Liszniansky said. “When you really think about that, it’s staggering.”

As it stands, the proposal is to locate the intermodal facility at the Ohio Commerce Center in Lordstown.

The 500-acre site on state Route 45 contains about 25 miles of rail line and is home to about a dozen companies operating under approximately 1.5 million square feet of roof, but there is room to grow.

“We have the ability to build a lot of new facilities here, a lot of new buildings,” co-owner George Bakeris said.

Of the potential, Bakeris said, “there is a lot of potential … we can put another probably better than 1 million square feet of roof, of buildings, up. We are working at opportunities to do that,” Bakeris said.

“If we could do it immediately, we would. We are looking for some customers,” Bakeris said. “We have been mulling around putting up another building just as a spec building, but we haven’t made a decision on that yet.”

Bakeris and his brother, Spiro, bought the center in 2010. They say they’re behind the idea of an intermodal facility at the center, which is directly serviced by CSX rail line. Also, a Norfolk Southern line runs right next door, however, new lines would need to be built to make the connection.

Having access to two rail lines would help customers with shipping costs as the railroads would compete, lowering the cost, George Bakeris said.

Dan Crouse, Platz Realty Group agent for the center, said, “We have something in northeast Ohio that most people don’t have and we can facilitate that here — and that is the outbound shipment of products.

“If you think about it, we generate a lot of corn, a lot of soybeans around here. A lot is already trucked to the river, put on barges and slow-walked all the way over to India and Pakistan and China and Japan. That is done already,” Crouse said. “But if these containers come in here and they go to TJX and they are unloaded, we can bring them back here, fill them up with grain and send them back to China, where they came from, so you don’t have a deadhead, you don’t have a one-way load.”

This story previously was published in Valley Business magazine.