Washington County officials are preparing for the possible location of an inland port in the county by improving sites that might attract businesses that would benefit from locating near a port.
On Tuesday, the county’s board of supervisors will consider a request from the industrial development authority that it provide financial assistance to help develop lots six and seven at the 302-acre Glade-Highlands Business Park in the town of Glade Spring.
Officials are studying whether to locate an inland port in Southwest Virginia and considering putting it in the Oak Park Center for Business and Industry, which totals 400 acres and is between Bristol and Abingdon in Washington County.
It would be the state’s second inland port. At the ports, cargo coming to or from coast ports is transferred between trains and trucks, which can relieve traffic at deep-water ports and reduce the cost of moving cargo by replacing trucks with trains.
The port could mean hundreds of jobs for Southwest Virginia, but the cost is not yet known.
In a Dec. 1 report, the Virginia Port Authority said it continues to work on the site design and an opinion on the costs is expected to be included in the Sept. 1 report.
In a letter to board of supervisors Chairman Randy Pennington, IDA Chairman Daniel Smith wrote that the IDA wants to complete the development of those lots in Glade-Highlands Park into “pad ready sites to attract new businesses that might find proximity to the port to be beneficial, as well as any other businesses that might be suitable.”
The meeting will be held at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at 1 Government Center Place in Abingdon. You can view the agenda here.
