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Rail’s Tangled Web In Polk County

Posted May 9, 2007 by Billy Townsend

Updated May 9, 2007 at 08:57 AM

Those of you who are following the CSX rail hub saga already know that today is a big day. It could see the County Commission formally turn against Winter Haven and CSX and call for a full development of regional impact review.

It also comes in the immediate wake of the County Commission’s caravan to Atlanta to check out a large intermodal rail yard there for background. Check out Tom Palmer’s account of that journey.

But CSX isn’t the only rail company planning to build a major distribution center/office hub in Polk County.

Flagler Development’s Lakeland Central Park would bring up to 6 million square feet of commercial development to 724 acres just off the Polk Parkway southwest of town. It is a development of regional impact, which means it is being extensively reviewed. (By comparison, the 1,250-acre CSX distribution center is not because the company and Winter Haven have split the project into two smaller pieces.)
 
Flagler Development doesn’t sound like a rail company, you say? It’s not, exactly. But it evolved out of the land holdings of Henry Flagler’s Florida East Coast Railroad. In 1984, it and the railroad company combined to form Florida East Coast Industries, which is based in Jacksonville. In 2006, FECI, through Flagler, bought Florida real estate titan Armando Codina’s Codina Group and brought on Codina to run it. Codina and FECI Adolfo Henriques, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of FECI, are long time friends, according to numerous reports.

Flagler started buying the Lakeland land in 2005. Development of the project as been stalled a bit because of sewer service problems and the DRI review it’s undergoing.

Flagler’s development does not include a rail element. But the rest of it sounds quite similar to the second phase of the CSX center in Winter Haven.

That makes me wonder about the relationship between these two projects. Are they competitors? Do they envision working together, sending each other business? Frankly, I don’t have any answers.

Armando Codina is a friend of the Bush family and was one of Jeb Bush’s first employers and patrons. Here’s a pretty detailed account.

Yet it was Jeb Bush’s government that made the landmark rail realignment deal with CSX that is the looming background of the Polk County debate over the impacts of CSX’s Winter Haven plan.

The intrigue deepened Tuesday with the announcement that a private equity firm called Fortress Investment will buy FECI for $3.5 billion. The purchase comes just three months after Fortress bought RailAmerica, a railroad operations company with high-ranking executives with past ties to CSX.

The purchase sent CSX’s stock soaring.

Now, if you know what all of this means for the two Polk County projects in question, you are smarter than I am. But it’s certainly interesting. And I will continue to watch and report on it as best I can.