I apologize in advance because this is long and complex, but I hope you’ll bear with me.

I would argue that the central tension at the heart of the CSX/development of regional impact debate is this: Winter Haven, CSX and Haven-area economic developers sell the rail center as a single 1,250-acre, 8,500-job producing, tax-base expanding behemoth of a project. But they want to regulate it as a 318-acre, 200-job run-of-the-mill industrial site.

Nowhere is this tension better on display than in last week’s flurry of blog activity from Bob Gernert, executive director of the Winter Haven Chamber of Commerce. Presumably, he was responding to the County Commission’s Wednesday vote to push for a regional review for the project. (As an aside, it seems peculiar to me the degree that Gernert, able and honorable as he is, has become almost the de facto public spokesman for the project’s development process. It seems to be Gernert talking to the public rather than CSX officials or key Haven government officials, like strategic developer Pete Chichetto, who speaks little about the project publicly, or City Manager David Greene, who speaks not at all.)

Gernert wrote three posts. The first two focused on the Alliance Texas mega distribution center development near Dallas. One post recounted a trip two Winter Haven businessmen in the logistics industry took there last October. The other looks at Alliance’s tenant list and uses it to speculate about the future of the Haven project. On its face, Alliance is actually much larger than the Haven ILC is projected to be. (It includes its own airport and residential components.) But I’m not sure about how the rail/truck component alone compares. In any event, Haven CSX backers have often compared the two projects.

Gernert writes: “The Alliance facility provides a good look at an ILC and its surrounding area developed from raw land, much as the Winter Haven site will be.”

Then, not three inches below, he paraphrases the account of the business executives as saying this: “They said the primary difference between the two sites is that Ross Perot developed raw land near Ft. Worth and Dallas while CSX has to shoe horn its project on the Winter Haven land and buffer it from existing homes.”

That would seem to be a contradiction.

Anyway, the post goes on to relate impressions of Alliance in some detail. What the executives describe is a master planned virtual city of industry, with “4,000 truck trailers” present at any given time. It even spawned a major NASCAR venue, the Texas Motor Speedway. (Another aside: The executives also note that “for the CSX Winter Haven site to reach the same kind of maturity that new roads, including the proposed Heartland Parkway, would have to be constructed to service the ILC and the surrounding area.” As you may have seen in The Tribune Saturday, the fortunes of the Heartland Parkway have waned significantly since Gov. Charlie Crist took over.)

Read Gernert’s post for yourself. Alliance is a model for the Haven ILC. Its backers would love to have an Alliance II right off of S.R. 60. That’s what they envision. Whatever one thinks of that idea, it would radically transform the area, if Alliance is any guide.

Yet when it comes time to talk about the approval process for the development and the DRI question, Gernert’s third post cites the “clearance” letter the state gave CSX. And he provides a bare, legalistic explanation of why the state has said the 318-acre rail hub – the engine of the entire development - doesn’t need to be reviewed on a regional basis. Gernett offers no opinion on that decision.

But there are a couple of important bits he doesn’t quote from the letter exchange.

Here’s what I think is most important. It comes from Jack Brandon, the immensely successful
Polk land use lawyer representing CSX. In explaining why CSX is seeking to avoid a DRI review for the entire 1,250 acres, Brandon writes to the state: “Considering the structure of the purchase from the city, CSX is not in a position to approach customers about the development of the 930 acres [of the second phase] until the 318-acre Intermodal Facility has been fully planned, approved and developed. In the event CSX chooses to proceed with the purchase of the remaining 930 acres and specify the corresponding site development plans, an application for DRI review will be filed with the Department at that time.”

Read that again: “In the event CSX chooses to proceed…”

In English, this means CSX doesn’t even officially know if there will be a 930-acre second phase, much less which companies will locate within it. That might come as a shock to East Polk economic developers, who are counting on more than just the 200 or so jobs projected for the 318-acre rail hub. The 1,800 additional onsite jobs and 6,500 supposed ancillary jobs depend on the economic activity of phase 2.

Surely, you say, everybody involved in this knows there will be a second phase with warehouses and offices galore. This is all just wink wink stuff. Maybe so. But the instant CSX formally admits it, the case for avoiding the DRI becomes flimsier, which makes approval of the hub slower, which could jeopardize the entire project, which must be built quickly because of the rail traffic switch caused by the half-billion commuter rail plan for Orlando, all of which provides great disincentive to formally commit to a second phase to DCA, the state’s guardian of development regulation, or for DCA to look to closely at the details of the plan.

Whew. That’s quite a chain. And if this language is wink wink stuff, doesn’t it suggest Florida’s growth management laws have little or no meaning? 

Meanwhile, Gernert and the city have posted on their Web sites CSX-produced packets with pages of detailed economic development projections for the full 1,250-acre ILC, which CSX won’t even officially acknowledge to the state that it will build.

And not once have I heard a project backer refer to the rail center as a 200-job development. Not once, in defending the DRI “clearance,” have I heard a project booster say it’s OK because CSX isn’t sure it will build phase 2.   

One last thing, for everyone who says the state’s DRI decision is set in stone, consider this passage from the same clearance letter from the state Gernert cites.

In responding to CSX, the state official writes: “Please be aware that the conclusions of this letter represent an informal determination based on the information presented in your letter...The Department has no independent knowledge of any of your assertions and the Department hereby reserves all rights.. concerning this development. Further review of this project may be required if the developer’s plans represented above are materially changed or if additional changes are proposed.” (Emphasis mine.)

That would seem to be a significant caveat, particularly considering this from Tom Palmer at The Ledger.

Maybe it’s just boilerplate language, but “informal determination” does not seem to equate to the “nothing we can do” sentiment expressed by the Polk county manager and county attorney. In fact, I wonder if they have read the letter they so confidently declare ties their hands.

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