Fred Wahl Marine Construction
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ConnectOregon TRANSIT AVIATION MARINE RAIL BIKE/PED MULT MODES Introduction Contents ConnectOregon, created by the Oregon Legislature in Aurora State Airport ............................3 2005, uses Oregon Lottery-backed bond dollars to leverage funding of non-highway projects throughout City of Prineville Railway ........................5 the state. Since its inception, ConnectOregon has put $427 Coos Bay Rail Link .............................7 million for rail, aviation, marine, public transit, bicycle/ pedestrian and multimodal projects. Here is a selection Fred Wahl Marine Construction ...................9 Number of Projects of successful projects from throughout the program’s history. More information and engaging videos are Pioneer Parkway Corridor ....................... 11 located at www.oregon.gov/ODOT/COMM/Pages/ Port of Morrow ............................... 13 ConnectOregon-Stories.aspx. 34 76 36 72 12 4 Teevin Bros. Land & Timber ..................... 15 Sandy Transit Facility ........................... 17 ConnectOregon Funding (in Millions) Tualatin River Greenway Trail Project ............. 19 Project Distribution by Mode .................... 20 $49.7 $101.7 $69.4 $173.1 $13.9 $15.5 Includes ConnectOregon Rural Airports projects. Chart does not include administrative costs. ConnectOregon Aurora State Airport uilt by the United States Army Air Forces in 1943 to support one of the biggest avionics dealers in the country, and Life Flight air Bthe Portland Army Air Base during World War II, the Auro- ambulance. ra State Airport has grown to become the third busiest airport in An additional 274 jobs off the airport property are directly Oregon. attributed to off-airport visitor spending, totaling nearly 1,500 jobs. The airport, operated by the Oregon Department of Aviation, Justin Dillingham is the Chief Customer Officer for Life is located northwest of Aurora in Marion County. After decades Flight Network, the largest nonprofit helicopter emergency medical without an air traffic control tower, Aurora State Airport enhanced services operations in the country. He says the safety and collision the safety and efficiency of its take-off and landing operations with avoidance technology paid for in part by ConnectOregon has been the 2015 construction of a $3.3 million Federal Aviation Administra- extremely valuable. tion control tower, the first of its kind for the 32 regional airports in Oregon. “We serve Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Montana, so we have to bring equipment in and out of our headquarters at Aurora A $2.7 million ConnectOregon III grant helped fund the new for maintenance as well as operate our life-saving service. It can be tower, which provides air traffic controllers with unobstructed views quite hectic,” Dillingham says. “Having the Aurora Air Traffic Con- of the airfield as well as visual and electronic monitoring of take- trol Tower increases our efficiency – in life-saving operations, every offs, landings and ground movement of aircraft. minute counts and the faster you can fly out, the better.” According to the 2014 Oregon Aviation Plan’s Economic “The Aurora air traffic control tower represents the best in Impact Study, the Aurora State Airport’s economic impact equaled transportation infrastructure improvements that ConnectOregon more than half a billion dollars, not including tax revenue generated brings to Oregon,” says Mitch Swecker, director of the Oregon from property or income tax. Airport businesses employ 1,200 peo- Department of Aviation. “It brought us a safer airport and helped ple, including two of the largest and most recognized heavy-lift heli- attract new business enterprises and jobs to the local communities in copter companies in the world—Columbia and Helicopter Transport the region.” Services—as well as the biggest kit-plane manufacturer in the world, 2 3 ConnectOregon City of Prineville Railway he City of Prineville Railway (COPR) is the oldest continuous- The railway had a stellar year in 2016 with projected double-digit Tly operated municipal shortline railroad in the United States. increases in carloads and revenue and more than 30 customers from Recent achievements can be directly connected to a succession of a variety of industries, including Les Schwab Tires, Carson Oil Co., ConnectOregon investments. Three rounds of ConnectOregon invest- the Malheur Lumber Co., and EnviroTech Services, which ships ments (CO I, II and III) helped develop a 37-acre freight depot site magnesium chloride de-icer liquid via rail throughout the country. —a former lumber mill located three miles west of Prineville—and “COPR now has more than 100 direct jobs on our line and enhanced intermodal capability throughout central Oregon. we’ve relocated three businesses that had been looking to move out The City of Prineville Railway’s freight depot is a regional mul- of Oregon,” says Railroad Operations Director Matt Wiederholt. timodal hub with transload, warehousing and distribution facilities. “ConnectOregon allowed us to invest in infrastructure that helps in- Instrumental in the COPR’s success is its unique transportation cubate new business, compete for relocating businesses and provide advantage: it is connected to both the Union Pacific and Burlington rail access for central Oregon shippers.” Northern railroads, which translates into direct transportation cost savings for Prineville area businesses. The railway also has the ability to accumulate products until a full railcar load is on site and then load out a railcar for a customer, or to unload an inbound product and store it on site and deliver it just in time to a customer plant or job site. 4 5 ConnectOregon Coos Bay Rail Link eorgia-Pacific West and other southern Oregon commodity Trestles, bridges, rail, ties and ballast were all repaired, restoring Gshippers remember the devastating embargo of freight rail the line so trains can travel 25-40 miles per hour in the future, re- service in September 2007. The closure, from Vaughn in Lane Coun- ducing the time and cost to get goods to market. Coos Bay Rail was ty to the North Spit of lower Coos Bay, was coupled with discon- named Shortline Railroad of the Year in 2014. tinued service on rail spurs that served Roseburg Forest Products in The port’s success with ConnectOregon began in 2006, when its Coquille and Southport Forest Products on the North Spit, forcing partnership application with Southport Forest Products obtained shippers to truck product at significantly higher costs. $506,000 to help redevelop a heavy-lift barge slip, creating a mul- The Oregon International Port of Coos Bay took action to se- timodal barge facility with access to rail and road. The facility now cure service for regional manufacturers by acquiring and re-opening handles ocean-going cargo barges able to move inbound logs, out- the rail line in western Lane, western Douglas and Coos counties. bound woodchips and a variety of break bulk (individually loaded) general cargo. The port raised $31 million to rehabilitate the Coos Bay Rail Link, including a $7.8 million ConnectOregon III grant and a $13.5 “This barge operation increases Southport Forest Product’s abil- million federal Transportation Infrastructure Generating Economic ities to handle multiple products, better control transportation costs Recovery (TIGER) II grant. and grow our customer base,” says owner Jason Smith. “These grants were necessary to fund rail projects tending to “ConnectOregon has been instrumental in supporting transpor- years of deferred maintenance,” says Port Commission President tation infrastructure development across the state,” says State Rep. Dave Kronsteiner. “Without state and federal funding, reopening Caddy McKeown, D-Coos Bay. “It’s a program that makes a real the rail line, a vital multimodal connection point for Oregon’s South difference for Oregonians, particularly in our rural areas.” Coast, would have been impossible.” 6 7 ConnectOregon Fred Wahl Marine Construction red Wahl Marine Construction, the largest private employer in Zimmer says the company committed $5.3 million to the $8.7 FReedsport, received a $3.4 million ConnectOregon grant to build million facility, a 61 percent match of the ConnectOregon grant a nine-story shipbuilding facility which will facilitate company plans funding (the program requires a 30 percent match). Scheduled for to expand its workforce by 50 percent. completion in 2018, the expansion is designed to decrease the cost to boat owners while increasing operational efficiency. Fishing vessel The new facility on Bolon Island, located between Reedsport owners want to return to the water more quickly, especially given the and Gardiner, will allow Fred Wahl Marine Construction to increase shorter season and weather-related challenges. its workload and move shipbuilding and repair work out of the rain when necessary. The firm expects its current staff of roughly 90 Reedsport City Manager Jonathan Wright notes that the eco- employees to increase by another 40 when the building is completed. nomic effect of adding 40 new family-wage jobs in Reedsport was like adding hundreds of jobs in the Portland-metro area. “We’re pretty excited about it, to tell you the truth,” says Project Manager Jim Zimmer. “The idea is that we would be able to pick the “From a city manager perspective, that’s all you can ever hope boats out of the water, drive them into this building, close the doors for,” Wright says. “Anytime we can build jobs back, especially ones and it wouldn’t matter what the weather is doing. We can sandblast, like Fred Wahl Marine’s (jobs) which are family-wage jobs with bene- paint, work on it in a nice environment.” fits, that’s a huge deal.” 8 9 ConnectOregon Pioneer Parkway Corridor ane County’s highest level of employment growth resides along ConnectOregon funding helped construct a six-mile corridor Lthe Pioneer Parkway corridor and the Gateway/RiverBend area. that connects existing EmX service in downtown Eugene to the downtown Springfield Station, the Gateway Mall, the Sacred Heart The ConnectOregon program invested in the Pioneer Parkway Medical Center at RiverBend, and the rapidly-growing area of north Bus Rapid Transit project, a significant expansion of Lane Transit Springfield.