Brice Wallace
At the beginning of 2023, Utah had one inland port project area. Now it’s closing in on reaching a milestone of 10.
The Utah Inland Port Authority board will consider approving the Castle Country Project Area at a meeting June 24 in Price. At a recent board meeting, supporters said the project area could help diversify the economies and create jobs in Carbon and Emery counties and Green River City.
“We’ve been working hard to get industry to our area and to bring new jobs to Carbon County. … We have some desirable area,” Shanny Wilson, Carbon County economic development and tourism director, told the board at its May meeting. “We have rail, we have air, we have beautiful land out there and we really want to bring industry to Carbon County, especially the Ridge Road area. …
“We’re excited to kickstart this partnership [with UIPA] that will incentivize development, that will hopefully bring in some new construction and potential manufacturing into our area. We’re working with a handful of industries that want to be there. They just need a little bit of help getting started.”
The proposed project area includes several pieces of land occupying a total of over 2,185 acres along primary roads and rail arteries, including Interstate 70 and US-6.
Jenna Draper, UIPA’s associate vice president of project area development for Central and Eastern Utah, said the industries that will be a focus for the project area are hydrogen and other alternative energy sources, manufacturing, carbon fiber, warehousing and distribution, rail infrastructure utilization and CO2 sequestration. UIPA documents also mention batteries, magnetics, electronics and electric vehicle charging.
The area, she said, will support and advance the logistical needs of the region and promote responsible economic growth and prosperity to the benefit of all of Utah.
Establishment of the Castle Country Project Area has the support of officials in Carbon and Emery counties and Green River City.
Local officials believe the project area will help the region be attractive to high-wage manufacturing as Carbon and Emery counties face a declining coal industry. Larry Jensen, Carbon County commissioner, said his county has no coal currently being produced and a project area would help diversify the county’s economy.
The county is working to “get over the hurdle of coal being a bad word, and lending institutions don’t want to put any money towards that, so we need to find some other types of industries,” he told the UIPA board. “And the ones that are poised to come, we need some infrastructure in place — more than the county can put upfront and shoulder, and more than these folks can put together in their capital stacks.”
Tyler Hunt, Green River City manager, said his city’s economic backbone is tourism. “And while I won’t turn down tourism, it is clear that it should not be the backbone of our economy but instead a support to our local economy,” he said. “We’re open to all kinds of business sectors, basically if it will provide good, stable jobs.”
He wants the area to be attractive to all types of entrepreneurs plus businesses of all sizes, as well as diversifying its economy and growing the pool of jobs. “We believe these project areas will be impactful in accomplishing our goals,” Hunt said.
UIPA board Chair Abby Osborne praised the proposed project area’s attributes. “This is exactly what we look for as a board, is to be off the Wasatch Front, be in communities, working with you collaboratively to grow your economic development the way you want to grow it, that’s right for the people that want to stay in your counties and remain citizens in your counties but also want to go to your counties for work,” she said.
The nine already approved project areas are an area in Salt Lake County, including in the Northwest Quadrant of Salt Lake City and parts of West Valley City and Magna; the Iron Springs Inland Port near Cedar City; the Verk Industrial Park project area in Spanish Fork; the Golden Spike project area in Garland, Tremonton, Brigham City and other parts of Box Elder County; the Central Utah Agri-Park in three parts of Juab County; the Mineral Mountains project area, consisting of four zones in Beaver County in parts of Beaver City, Beaver County and Milford City; the Tooele Valley area; the Twenty Wells area in Grantsville in Tooele County; and an area in western Weber County.
Osborne and Ben Hart, UIPA’s executive director, both said that the board will slow down its creation of project areas this year, with Osborne saying “we really want to focus and make sure that the project areas that we’ve identified are working.”
Hart said that after the Castle Country project area comes up for a vote June 24, “we are not going into expansion mode like we did last year.”
“I think a lot of people have wondered if we will be doing another 10 or nine or eight project areas this year. We will not. We’re going to keep it a smaller number in terms of overall new project areas that are being considered,” Hart said.
Other areas expected to be brought before the board this year are in Fillmore and a couple of other centrally located counties, he added.
“We are anticipating that will be all of our new project areas for this calendar year, and we’ll look at some again potentially next year, but we will be much more off the Wasatch Front, in rural communities, in the upcoming months,” he said.
UIPA is “thrilled with how the project areas are going,” Hart said.
“I think all of them have been making progress,” he said, “and so we’re excited to see these areas continue to grow as we’re able to help optimizing what’s happening in these areas.”