Great Western park’s future tied closely to railway

WINDSOR – A chief architect of the Great Western Industrial Park in eastern Windsor intended no irony when he said the development had reached a “tipping point” in its march toward building more than 8 million square feet of industrial space.

But the irony is maddening.

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A three-year string of success stories in recruiting major employers to the park operated by Denver-based Broe Cos. has landed Great Western in headlines, with more than 600 high-paying industrial jobs spread among three new companies.

The short-line Great Western Railway, the industrial park’s linchpin, has made at least as much news with a troubling string of seven derailments in less than a year. The latest “tipping,” on April 17, spilled three carloads of corn bound for Front Range Energy Inc.’s ethanol plant, making a trackside pile just east of Colorado Highway 257.

“Yes, it’s a big deal in the sense that it’s not good to have these things happening,´ said Eric Swanson, Broe’s senior vice president for real estate. “Having the kinds of incidents we’ve had in the past year is not acceptable.”

Despite the rash of accidents, it is the railroad that has brought jobs to Windsor, and it is the railroad that will propel the business park toward an eventual 8.2 million-square-foot expansion, according to a consultant’s report.

The most recent and most celebrated Great Western arrival is Vestas Wind Systems A/S, the Danish company that leads the world in manufacturing wind turbines for electric power generation.

The company’s decision-makers make no secret of the role that Great Western’s railroad played in their move to Windsor after a continent-wide search of more than 40 sites for their first North American factory.

Specifically, it is the flexibility of the short-line railroad, a century-old remnant of Northern Colorado’s sugar beet industry, that landed Vestas.

‘Anywhere we need to go’

“What we saw at Great Western was a chance to have an operator that can bring us to either Union Pacific or the Burlington Northern systems,´ said Kjear Jacobsen, Vestas’ senior vice president for business development. “That gets us anywhere we need to go – north, south, east or west.”

In their due-diligence process prior to closing on 80 acres of Great Western land in March, Vestas officials took a long and careful look at the railroad’s record and concluded that the industrial park’s managers were prepared to make the needed investment to make sure the trains are running.

To keep the development pace of the 660-acre industrial park on track, Broe’s rail subsidiary is rushing to upgrade the track system, repairing main lines and spurs within Windsor and along the 20-mile stretch that connects to Fort Collins.

“We’re prepared to spend well over $1 million in the next few months,” Swanson said. “That’s on top of the $4 million we’ve invested in the past five years.”

The key to Great Western’s role in attracting major industrial employers to Northern Colorado is the railway’s linkages to what Swanson calls “the big guys” of the national rail system in a manner that delivers service to small companies – and even some not-so-small – that otherwise wouldn’t have it.

“The big guys – Burlington Northern, Union Pacific – can’t handle some of these smaller interests,” he said. The big railroads do bigger jobs, Swanson added. “They deliver millions of containers from China and millions of tons of coal from Wyoming.”

The Great Western Railway’s presence gives the same-named industrial park a niche in the competitive race for economic development and jobs.

“It has put Northern Colorado right in the bull’s-eye because of the short-line Great Western Railway,” Swanson said. “That single fact has created an economic opportunity that this region would not have had. The railroad has clearly become an economic catalyst. … If we’re at a tipping point with this development, it’s because of the railroad.”

Public-private collaboration

Another key to attracting companies such as O-I Inc., Front Range Energy Inc. and Vestas Wind Systems was the collaboration among Broe, Weld County, Windsor and Greeley in presenting a unified pitch to industrial prospects.

A clear example of how cooperation rather than competition netted a prime employer is the case of Vestas, Swanson said.

After scanning the 500-plus acres available in Broe’s industrial park, Vestas executives settled on an 80-acre parcel that was loaded with complications, not the least of which was that half of it is located within Greeley’s growth-management boundary.

While Broe had the 40-acre parcel under contract to purchase, it took officials from Windsor and Greeley to pave the way for its annexation to Windsor.

Rod Wensing, at that time serving as Windsor’s town administrator, and Greeley City Manager Roy Otto shoved differences aside and reached what Otto called a “gentleman’s agreement” to cede the entire 80 acres to Windsor.

“All we said was we’re not going to muck up this issue,” Otto said. “It was a no-brainer decision for me. Greeley stands to benefit greatly from the Vestas project, and to sit and bicker over 40 acres, and say, ‘Hey, we get the sales tax on that,’ makes no sense.”

Landing Vestas also meant financial commitments from Broe, as well as other incentives from county and state sources. Once again, collaboration was the key in assembling the package, Swanson said.

“We put up the equivalent of about $2 million in incentives up front, just as we did for O-I,” Swanson said, adding that part of the package required more than the usual element of trust. “We put up $800,000 for the power (utilities) in January, three months before we had a contract signed. Then the town stepped up, the county stepped up and the state stepped up.”

Larry Burkhardt, president of Upstate Colorado Economic Development and a key player in arranging Vestas’ Northern Colorado arrival, said the Great Western Industrial Park remains loaded with further opportunities for similar development.

“It’s a very large piece of land with rail service, and there just aren’t that many of those around,” Burkhardt said. “The key is the Great Western railroad. Union Pacific, Burlington, those guys will say, ‘We don’t want to serve these little, bitty things.’ Great Western comes in and says, ‘Yeah, we can do that.'”