A rezoning request has now been submitted to Maricopa County Planning and Zoning Commission for the construction of what will be a massive transportation hub operated by the Burlington Northern Santa Fe company.
The project will go up on a 6,000-acre site off U.S. Route 60 in the unincorporated community of Wittmann, nearly 50 miles to the northwest of Phoenix.
BNSF secured the land in question as part of an Arizona State Trust Land auction in the spring of 2022 with a winning minimum bid of $49.1 million.
A project of a similar nature was proposed well over a decade ago by the railway company, but ultimately abandoned owing to the economics of the Great Recession.
As planned, the Wittmann project will see the construction of what is being called a “logistics park,” with a substantial logistics center and intermodal facility. Also planned: roughly 18 million square feet of warehouse facilities.
What will essentially serve as the western hub for BNSF has been long in the talking stages, with company officials emphasizing the importance of having an inland port similar to ones currently existing in Chicago and the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
The project has sparked opposition from nearby neighbors, especially after a report was released last month by the Scottsdale-based civil engineering company CivTech Incorporated suggesting that within the next decade up to 15,000 trips to the facility would be made daily by either trucks or cars.
The Maricopa Planning and Zoning Commission meeting, which will review and possibly sign off on the BNSF project, is set for November 7. From there, the project will get a once-over by members of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors on December 11.
If all goes well, construction of the giant project could begin early next year, with an anticipated opening date of sometime in 2028.
BNSF is the largest freight railroad company in the country, comprising more than 33,400 miles of track. Through dozens of individual routes, those tracks primarily cover the Great Plains states.
A current track in Arizona covers nearly 400 miles east to west across the mid-section of the state.
By Garry Boulard