.jpg)
THE FRONTIER LINE
Hosts Wayne Aston and David Murray explore the critical global pillars of infrastructure development and energy production, from traditional methods to future-forward advancements. The Frontier Line covers the latest industry news, energy innovations, and sustainability trends that are shaping the future. Through expert interviews with industry leaders in renewable energy, utility-scale battery storage, and waste-to-energy technologies, the podcast provides insights into the evolving landscape of energy efficiency and sustainable infrastructure. By focusing on the intersection of innovation and the politics of energy, The Frontier Line highlights transformative ideas and technologies poised to deliver cost-efficient, resilient, and sustainable solutions for global industries.
THE FRONTIER LINE
Utah Inland Port Authority (UIPA)
Welcome back to the show, guys Morning.
Speaker 2:Dave, good morning, good afternoon, good night or good evening, I guess, good night, not good night, good evening, wherever you are, whenever you're listening to this. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll cover all of the spectrum.
Speaker 1:Glad you guys decided to come back for another episode. It means we're doing something right here, we're not just rattling on and on. Today we thought we would do ourselves a favor and cover an entire segment on the Inland Port Authority and as we've, you know, gone through season one, we've really keyed in on Inland Port Authorities just in mentions and it's continued to be a kind of a prevailing thing, you know. So I think you guys out there listening probably already know who the Utah Inland Port authorities are. But we thought it would be valuable if we were to articulate in a few segments here who's the leadership, what's the mission behind the Utah Inland Port Authority.
Speaker 1:You know, when we're talking to folks in other states or overseas it sounds really official and you want to, you want to kind of quantify, you know what is this, how much authority is really behind this. So we thought we'd talk a little bit about the leadership, a little bit about the actual port areas throughout the state of Utah, because there's many Thought we would cover the developer tools that come inside that inland port area. You know, if you're an inland port project area there's a toolbox for developers and it's all designed for economic growth. We thought we'd touch on that and then thought we'd, you know, share some of the key economic impacts throughout the state of Utah that have come since the inland port authorities kicked off. It's a fairly new thing. This is legislation that actually was brought about in 2018. So the utah inland port authority you know it's not this long-standing political organization, but it's. It's been quite the impactful thing, right, dave?
Speaker 2:it. It absolutely has and, uh, you know. So, a couple fun things. I mean, I you know, I've heard it, it's uh, it's commonly referred to, so it's it's acronym is uipa. So I've heard yupa, uipa and and various combinations and I know it's actually kind of a funny thing within the organization of, like, what are we actually? But, right for the purpose of today, I just want to let everybody know, like, if you so, if you hear, if you're local and you hear uipa, that UEPA, that's what they're talking about. It. You know it was formed in by SB 234, as you said, in 2018, setting its powers, and then it created the initial NWQ, the Northwest Quadrant jurisdiction. That was the first, the first thing out of the gate. That was a quadrant here in Salt Lake City, utah.
Speaker 1:You know, it's interesting to focus on that Northwest Quadrant for a second, because in the inception of Inland Port Authority, I think the vision was solely focused there. It was like, look, we recognize this need, for, you know, and the Northwest Quadrant guys is out there, adjacent to the big Salt Lake City International Airport, that's in Salt Lake County jurisdiction, just outside of Salt Lake City, utah, so it's central to what you would imagine the core logistics hub in Utah would be. And that Northwest Quadrant is that it's a lot of industrial, a lot of you know, you've got transmotor rail facilities, you've got a lot of logistics, shipping, warehousing and so all the things that you imagine as an a port project. That's really what Northwest quadrant is. But it caught lots of gunfire early, like it wasn't, it wasn't, it wasn't this thing that everyone just fell in love with automatically, and so that's an interesting story in its own right.
Speaker 2:It is and we could touch on that, I mean, and there are still today ongoing lawsuits. And so I think let me, if you're not, if you're listening and you're not in Utah, let me tell you why this is. Let me give you an overview as to why this is relevant also to you. Because this is relevant also to you because this is utah's inland port authority and and what they're doing isn't unique in utah, um, there are inland ports um all over, or inland port quote-unquote, inland ports all over the country, um, sometimes they're called inland terminals, dry ports, intermodal hubs, um, and they all have different kinds of functions about them. So you know, I think utah I don't know what the lineage was, but obviously Utah saw an opportunity. Why? Because there's a lot of economic prosperity that can come out of these kinds of things and they wanted to get it going and they thought Utah, being already geographically located and you've got I-15 and I-80 were already kind of a crossroads of the West anyway it made a lot of good sense, plus right next to an international airport, and so you know, there were lots of reasons to consider it. And so, to your point that you know, when they created that first quadrant area, that all of that was going into this, and so they were looking at what was going on across the country. So places like Alliance, texas, or you've got Greer Inland Port in South Carolina, chicago Central Point Intermodal Center, Kansas City Smart Port and Savannah's Mason Mega Rail Terminal these are all these kinds of areas.
Speaker 2:What's interesting about Utah is we are a little bit different. Most inland ports are single city site or city run. Utah Inland Port Authority can create a network of project areas, urban and rural. So this hub and spoke model is truly unique to Utah and no one else has done that. So, whereas we have one authority that can go and this is going to be important as we talk about this and can go and create multiple areas, most states haven't gone, or all states besides Utah haven't. They haven't gone there and done it. It's usually just one area that happens to be a key logistics center, and then they've, they've, they've created these areas out of that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so the transition on the mission has been fun to watch because you know we'll we'll refer to the Northwest quadrant as the flagship port project area and understanding regionally what that impact is. I think that early mission, or the early vision with Jack Hedge at the helm, was let's be a pressure relief valve, for you know the ports in La Jolla and you know Orange County and and Los.
Speaker 1:Angeles, like you know all ports in La Jolla and you know Orange County and Los Angeles, like you know all of the seaport coming in overseas. There's a lot of traffic right there nationally and you know if those folks could rail or truck a lot of that freight into a neighboring hub Salt Lake City happens to be that neighboring hub then that could be a good pressure relief valve. So that I think think was the original mission that has dramatically changed and under the leadership of Ben Hart they've aggressively gone about creating these port project areas across the state. I'm going to name them all off for the listeners. So we've already talked about Northwest Quadrant. We've got the Golden Spike, which is north, that's up in Box, elder County. It's interesting to look at kind of the acreages too and note the different sizes. The flagship port project there at Northwest Quadrant is 16,000 acres, so this spans into multiple city jurisdictions and county jurisdictions. Golden Spike similar thing, it's regional. You've got the Iron Springs, which is a Cedar City area. So central south Utah. We have the historic capital Port Project area in Millard County, at Fillmore City, and that's a fun one to focus on, dave, because as the listeners probably, if they've been paying attention, they know that Invicta Sovereign was a critical, critical driver to having that done and collaborating with Scott Wolford and his team and Jenna Draper on the inland port side with Fillmore City officials, mayor Mike Holt and his council. It took over two years of effort to kind of get through the invitation and the official processes, know all the stakeholders on board with it and then finally have it created. That historical capital project was finalized and ratified in August 24, so last year. So it was fun for us to be a part of that and looking forward to actually creating another new project area. We'll get to that.
Speaker 1:But Central Utah Agri-Park is another one that I'm getting really fond about. That's in Juab County, so for our Utah folks that's Nephi and a little bit north and south of that the Central Utah Agri-Park is a massive footprint. I don't actually see the acres, I just know enough about the project because we know the directors and the people and the focus there in Central Utah Agri-Park is really innovative. It's keying into Utah's agricultural excellence so it's bringing in, you know, cattle processing and slaughterhouse and rendering plant and all of the modern vertical grow facilities so that you know our crop production GDP for Utah can really expand and modernize and it could be a year-round thing instead of. You know, most of our ag in Utah is alfalfa barley, silage corn and those types of outdoor crop that are very seasonal but limited in the variety, and so we're very excited to see Central Utah Agri-Park blooming.
Speaker 1:You've got the Minerals County, or, excuse me, minerals Mountains, Minerals Mountains, mineral Mountains and Beaver, mineral Mountains and Beaver, mineral Mountains and Beaver, so that includes Beaver City and Milford Minersville, I believe. Yep, yep, there you go. Castle Country, that's Carbon and Emory County, so that's down there near Price, on your way to Moab. They're focused on energy and mining. You've got the Ancient Sky, which is San Juan County, focusing on light manufacturing and distribution. That actually serves regional, tribal, energy and tourism sectors. So that's south of Moab, south of Grand County.
Speaker 1:Then there's Skyline Corridor, sand Peak County that's where I'm from, ephraim and Manti or Snow College. Down in that Skyline Corridor, sand Peak County, that's where I'm from Ephraim and Manti or Snow College. Down in that Skyline Corridor, port Project area, you've got the Virk Industrial Park, and that's actually in the Spanish Fork area. So South Utah County, more industrial, commercial, logistics, last mile distribution, so really a service to the, you know the flagship Northwest Quadrant and then you've got North Temple Remediation and I think that's a pretty new one actually because, as we've talked to Scott and the team over at Inland Port, you know there's a big focus on environmental cleanup in that area transforming, you know, underutilized industrial sites and even an old landfill, converting and redeveloping that as a brown site. So really exciting to see how active the Inland Port Authority has been in maybe just the last 24 months. Most of those projects were actually ratified or created in the last 24 months, so very active very, and I think did you mention the two.
Speaker 1:There's two areas in toila county as well, right oh yeah, I don't think I I don't think I mentioned that uh.
Speaker 2:So we've got, um, uh, the 20 wells area in grant and grantsville, toila county. So 650 acres adopted in 20, uh, the december 23, uh, it's the broken arrow zone, uh, then may 2024, stv approved savage toila rail yard, uh, and so that was that's what happened. It's the Broken Arrow Zone. Then May 2024, stb approved Savage-Tulaloo Rail Yard, and so that's what happened there. And then you've got the just Tulaloo Valley, which is 243 acres near I-80 in Burmester Project area in process with county resolution and board presentation. So that was what was going on out there. So a couple things also out in Tooele as well. So I think you got everything else. I just want to make sure everybody got represented.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, thank you. Thank you for making sure we didn't miss anybody.
Speaker 2:Did we get a Pony?
Speaker 1:Express one. Oh, I don't think I mentioned that one either.
Speaker 2:All right, I think there's a bunch of them, 13 total. Yeah, so there's 13 total yeah, so that's in Fairfield and Cedar Fort, west Utah County, 1,700 rural acres adopted June 26, 2025. Aims to blend light manufacturing, ag tech and renewables while preserving rural character.
Speaker 1:So the listeners are probably out there scratching their heads and saying, well, what is the goal with all of these projects? Like, why so many? You know, some of these are just a few miles apart what? What's the mission? And maybe it's maybe it's prudent to talk about the specialized tools and incentives that that are available if you're inside a port project area that you have access to as a developer that can really compel economic growth that you may not have if you're not in a port project area. So there's an entire toolkit that Inland Port manages and brings to the table here. Let's touch on that, dave.
Speaker 2:Let's do that. So their primary funding model is based upon a property tax differential. Their primary funding model is based upon a property tax differential. You're going to hear it called referred to as increment. So tax increment financing TIFs. And when a project area is created, the property tax value at the moment is the baseline, so local governments keep collecting the same revenue from the baseline. As new development raises property values, the extra tax above the baseline, the increment okay is set aside for infrastructure mitigation incentives in the project area. So you know, I guess the best way to probably explain this is you know, imagine the farmer you know who's always made four thousand bucks a season, right, and after improving irrigation, the farm makes $7,000. They keep living on the original $4,000, and the extra $3,000 is going into a special fund for more improvements and infrastructure and incentives and all of those things that we know create some stability and foundation for future growth. So, in a nutshell, that's the big tool they wield. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and we love that tax increment financing that. You know we've done segments on the show talking about public infrastructure districts and that's a foundational kind of structural layer that you can apply a tax increment district overlay onto a public infrastructure district and so then you're coupling these advantages but you're using, you know, adjusting the mill levy and using that tax increment on those improvements to make all the things work. And I think the key thing for everyone to understand here is the goal of that is permitting and what we refer to as speed to vertical. It's a big selling point for Inland Port Authority, this bureaucratic agility that it can supersede some of the municipal boundaries and that clears the way for permitting funding zoning hurdles. Sometimes you're going from idea to shovel ready in less than 90 days, which is which is really impressive, that's.
Speaker 1:You've all heard the stories if you're, if you're paying attention to the land development game nationally you can read this in the news. You hear about some of the data center guys. You hear about manufacturing getting pushback from city councils, getting pushback from a county or even on a state level on zoning and ordinance and permits and inspections and all these things. Well, this is part of the advantage of having a port project area, as you're dealing with one jurisdiction within that district that really knows the boxes that have to be checked, and you can move through that process much faster and you can move through that process much faster.
Speaker 2:That's right and you know, overall I mean really the pitch and the argument for this is you're keeping baseline funding stable, so you're not disrupting that. And if you're a community like this and you need to build infrastructure, this is building infrastructure without raising taxes, without raising tax rates, and that's really ultimately, for the listener, that's what this comes down to. Now there are arguments around how that's done, all those sorts of things, but ultimately you're getting to build some significant infrastructure out without having to burden the community. And when you go into smaller communities, when you're talking about an infrastructure project, it's a big burden. You and I have spent some time in Wyoming and we know in one of the areas in Wyoming we're dealing with, for example, their water tower had issues. That was a huge hit to the community. A very small community had to come up with millions of dollars in order to fix this. So, and that's just to keep it going. So the thought of expanding or doing anything else or trying to attract business becomes onerous, and so that's what that's.
Speaker 2:That's a part of this. That was so critical to Inland Port is that you're going OK, well, we get, we need to build infrastructure so the businesses can come, but we don't want to burden the taxpayer, and that's how this goes. And so what you're getting is they're getting jobs, sales tax revenue, long-term property tax growth, and then, after the TIF period has ended, all that gain, that all goes. Then they can enjoy just 100% of the gains, because you're using that period, that TIF period, in order to finance all that infrastructure growth without putting it on the taxpayer. That's the nuts and bolts of how this ultimately works on a tax side. And then there's and again, and then, just to bookend what you said, then there's all the stuff that helps developers and businesses be able to do what they need to do, and this is why we've had some success in the Northwest quadrant of tracking very significant businesses.
Speaker 1:That's right, dave. When you go to the Inland Port Authority's website you'll see they've identified three core pillars as the focus. One of those is rail expansion, the other one of those is airport expansion and the third one is environmental expansion, or improvement or modernization. So, you know, reducing emissions where we can, innovating, you know, bringing innovative manufacturing and that type of thing. So a big push for modern you know, modernized manufacturing businesses.
Speaker 1:Modernized manufacturing businesses. They provide site selection assistance so the authority can kind of act as the one-stop shop for tenants and that that's kind of an integration with where Ryan Stark sits over there at EDC Utah. And and Ryan Starks happens to be on the board we're going to talk about you know who the leadership of Inland Port Authority is here in a minute, but but integrating with EDC Utah, their mission as a nonprofit is to help business. You know, come to Utah and find those sites and find the locations that have the nomenclature that could accommodate a Texas Instruments for example, because that happens to be one of the big ones that you know Ryan Starks was involved in, maybe one of the biggest projects in Utah with the recent $11 billion commitment Texas Instruments expansion.
Speaker 2:And we've had, you know we've had a couple of others, I mean some concrete wins so far. So is it working so far? Because you know they launched it recently? Yes, so Lakeshore Learning's 1.2 million square foot facility in the Golden Spike project area employs around 540 workers already.
Speaker 1:BZI.
Speaker 2:Steel in Cedar City Iron Springs area is expected to employ up to 800 people, with direct rail access for shipping. The expectation right now, according to the Port Authority, is that by 2050, the port could generate over $1.1 billion annually in state and local tax revenue, and it's also expected to support anywhere between 19,000 and 24,000 permanent jobs, plus tens of thousands more during construction, plus all of the follow-on ancillary revenue that gets into sales tax revenue of all of these people coming in and spending money in the local communities. And so that's where these things are already having an impact, a significant impact, and then eventually and I would imagine most people would see this as a very important number is that they will eventually handle up to 25% of Utah's imports and exports. What does that mean for businesses here in Utah made in Utah? That means it's going to give us here in Utah access to national and global access in a more pronounced way, in a more inexpensive way really, and it's going to lower costs for Utah businesses. So that's overarching picture. It's working yeah, oh absolutely there are.
Speaker 2:There are those that say that it's not working. They've they, you know that they've had some environmental things and that those were so it's. It's not without its detractors, it's not without its fights. But uh, inland port very smartly, I believe you know realized early on that part of the money that they're making is going to go to environmental mitigation. It's going to go right back into making these areas better and improving these areas over what they were.
Speaker 2:Again, some will disagree, but that's baked into their strategy with all of these areas right now is that we're going to take it in, but it's got to go back and it's got to be the kind of growth that we want and we can't come in and just decimate these areas to be the kind of growth that we want and it's got to. You know, we can't come in and just decimate these areas. We've got to come in and revitalize these areas and and make sure that they are, they are vital or they're. You know they're, they're, they're, they're, they're. They're not only teaming with business success, but they're also places that we can be proud of and that that fit in with the natural surrounding areas, and that has been one of their key things that they've been doing and putting money back in.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, dave. I mean in the years now of board meetings and phone calls and you know video conferences with Scott Wolford and his team and Ben Hart and you know everybody over there. They're very committed to Utah communities and it's a similar mentality what we're talking about with Valley Forge and that's why Valley Forge, I think, is such an important addition to this whole initiative and that is that if the tides are rising, all the ships need to rise on that tide or they all get to. And that's what happens in communities. When you go in and you bring responsible growth, you bring some of that business to increase property values and provide subsidies and opportunities and jobs. And so these communities that are involved with these port areas have real, real market, you know markable or measurable opportunity for growth in the ways they want to grow.
Speaker 1:The Inland Port Authority doesn't come in and tell you what has to be in that area, but it just creates an environment where you know the community that, like the cities in these jurisdictions, can now kind of program and they've got incentives to offer folks to come to that community. So that's really a stackable value on top of some of the other federal and state things like federal opportunity zones or rural federal opportunities or the red TIF zones in Utah. Those are additional tax incentive mechanisms but they all layer and so when you've got a Port Project area that also sits in an opportunity zone, that's also in a red TIF zone, it's a staggering amount of value for a new business to come stand the business up in one of these areas.
Speaker 2:It is and we know this, and I would imagine some of our listeners know this, but for those who don't, the state is always getting hit up by businesses saying, hey, we like your economic climate, we love the population, the workforce, it's educated, we want to come there, but we need these things. And they have to say no a lot because we don't have some of the things they need. And I think this is the evolution of that over a lot of years of saying no and saying, okay, what kinds of sandboxes can we build that can be the right kinds of sandboxes so that these businesses can come in and help craft or help be a part of what do they need in order to function, so that we can start to attract the businesses we want and then continue to you know, continue to build out that work, the worker foundation of Utah, and keep our economy in Utah strong Again.
Speaker 2:if you've been paying attention, utah is always ranking one, two, three, four somewhere in there. When we're talking about economic viability or success of our state or staying ahead, we oftentimes don't feel the effects as greatly as other locations in the country. We ride the wave a lot of the times. Where we're going well, it doesn't seem that bad. Part of that is because these kinds of things have been in the works for a long time and our leadership has understood for many years that you have to have these foundational elements so that when the economy or a sector of the economy goes south, we still have enough value in all these other other places that that we can. We can ride the waves and we do that fairly well. And and and this is part of that this is laying those groundworks in these locations so that we have viability in all parts of Utah going into the future and that you know for and for years to come. So years to come.
Speaker 1:That's right, that's right. Moving to leadership Well before we go to leadership, I don't think we mentioned this interesting thing when we talk about that tax increment. So for the listeners, for some clarity here, when we talk about that increment, the way that Inland Ports is structuring this to bring increment cash flow into a, into a community, they've split it up. It typically runs out as a 25 75 split. So 75 of a new increment created in an area will typically be reinvested into that area and then 25 of that will be allocated to the jurisdiction, usually the county. So everyone's getting a piece of this.
Speaker 1:But if all of it went to the county, the county may not be well, they certainly wouldn't be mandated to reinvest it into the development of a certain project. They'd kind of have their own way to do it. But but I think focusing most of that increment right into the targeted things you know the, the, the, the growth multipliers like rail power, um, you know transportation, logistics, those, those are things that that you can build on, that's, that's key infrastructure, that that brings businesses to a new project right.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, uh, you know, and ultimately, this is what this is. You want to build infrastructure without tapping general budgets. That's the whole point. Yeah, right that you got to get to that point. You, you know the taxpayers as I think most of us would agree are already burdened enough, and and so, uh, yeah, we're faced with this. Do we, do we pay for this infrastructure item? Do we not pay for this infrastructure item? This is kind of the best of both worlds approach to where the growth itself is going to pay for the infrastructure. That's the point.
Speaker 1:Um, we're gonna, we're gonna see if we can cover this all in the next 10 or 15 minutes. And and um, we've talked about a lot of influential people already. We mentioned Ryan Starks. He's one of our favorites and we and we have an opportunity to work with Ryan Starks on almost a daily basis. Uh, we talked about Scott Wolford and Scott Wolford. Maybe we got more time with Scott Wolford setting up that historic uh capital project than anyone else. I mean, he was hands-on down there making the presentations and that guy drives from project to project constantly. He's a road warrior.
Speaker 2:Well, he's amazing and he's somebody most, at least in Utah, most people have never heard of, but he's the guy that's making Utah happen behind the scenes. And whether or not he's behind the scenes or probably in the scenes and kind of that network, he's. He's one of those people that we can say we're so glad to have in government doing really good work and really just trying to make utah a better place. And that's that's if you, you know, if you ever run it, run across and meet him. He's that kind of a guy. He just he just wants, wants utah to do better and but and he's the and he's the person behind it he's making it all happen. Whether or not we see him, he's one of those people we absolutely need.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. We've mentioned Executive Director Ben Hart and he really is at the helm, he's running the show and I give a lot of credit to Ben and his leadership and his vision for pivoting into this multiple project kind of focus. And we've had so many good meetings with Ben and he's a great guy to work with. He's a good leader. Talking about the board here a little bit, Abby Osborne, House Chief of Staff, is my understanding. She is the chair of the Board of Directors of the Inland Port Authority, and then you've got Senator Stevenson, You've got Joel Ferry, Director of the Department of Natural Resources, You've got Jonathan Friedman with World Trade Center and this is at oh and Jefferson Moss, the most recent addition.
Speaker 1:So one thing, guys, that's interesting about the people that is a common denominator is most of them have economic development backgrounds.
Speaker 1:Okay, and I have to make this the bridge on the gap right now, because when you go into most most utah communities rural and otherwise and you're dealing with city councils and mayors rarely do you have city councils that have much, if any, economic development experience. You get a lot of volunteer people from all types of backgrounds and they don't necessarily have the depth or the perspective to put these pieces together. The way the Inland Port Authority is structured is. It's drawn people who we've named, who come from former backgrounds, like Ben Hart, you know, formerly, with the Governor's Office of Economic Opportunity. Now you've got Jefferson Moss, who currently runs the you know Governor governor's office of economic opportunity. Ryan Stark same thing nine years, three different governors in the governor's office of economic opportunity, now running EDC Utah. So the common denominator that I see with all these folks is they know from experience that core common denominator is economic growth and development and that is why I think this is so powerful, because they know how to actually execute on these things.
Speaker 2:They do and they've seen it. They walk the walk, they talk the talk. They are the most effective people, almost for a state, when the outreach to companies and businesses outside the state. They, they know how to get the job done and so, being in the roles they are in doing this, they take all of that, that experience that they've executed on masterfully over the last 10, 15 years, and they bring it in into this. It's great. I mean, you know we can look around. You take a look around where you're living. We I think there's a we often bitch about traffic in Utah.
Speaker 2:You know we do, and I think this is not dissimilar if you're living in a place like California or notable places where we've had a lot of traffic. Well, utah has really exploded. We have significant traffic and I think it's one of our one of the chief complaints over growth, and a lot of people are complaining about growth, over growth, and a lot of people are complaining about growth. But again, it's it's. It's it's only some of some of that. Stuff comes along with the fact that we have a you know we have a very uh, our our unemployment rate is incredibly low.
Speaker 2:Jobs, really good paying jobs, are available here. We have a robust economy here in utah. People are doing well. We're making money. There's opportunity for not only people existing in the workforce, but kids coming up getting, you know, teenagers now in high school, 20-somethings now exiting college, whether it's trades or going into the university, whatever pathway that takes. There's a lot of opportunity here in Utah. And it all comes back to economic development. If you stop doing economic development, that stuff dries up and then you look around and go well, how come we don't have things happening here? How come the jobs are leaving?
Speaker 1:That's why, yeah, Yep, you know it's interesting when you talk about that too, dave, because Inland Port Authority isn't just about the things we've already mentioned here the rail, the air, the manufacturing and that growth but there's a key integrated part to that which is housing. And if we talk about the historic capital port area in Fillmore, there hasn't been significant growth in Fillmore City, utah, in 70 years. Now. Most people know that Fillmore City is called the historic capital. It's known as the historic capital. It was the original territorial capital of the state of Utah before Utah became a state and they have great pride in that. So it's an old community and because there hasn't been anything really relevant, really significant, developed in Fillmore city in 70 plus years. To Dave's point, this is why kids come up through school and they leave immediately because they've got to go somewhere else to find a job. And so getting that historic capital port project created just created the base layer for businesses to start coming in and have a reason to come there. Oh, okay, if I stand my business up in Fillmore versus over here in this other community where I can't get all these advantages tax incentives and financing options and support to grow my business, ok, this makes more sense now.
Speaker 1:And Fillmore is off to a slow start. I'm not aware of much, you know it's not booming. So so for the listeners, that's another interesting distinction to make. It's not like set you set up a port project area and all of a sudden it just blows up into this booming, you know, economic metropolis. That's not, it's not the. That's not the way it works.
Speaker 1:It's still very much in the hands of inland port authorities collaborating with that municipal jurisdiction and and and meeting their needs and their wants and and seeing it get programmed the way they want it to. So we've got high hopes for Fillmore and we hope that they'll do well with it. We know, on the other hand, as we go down further into Millard County and we talk about standing up a Newport project area, valley Forge we have a much different plan. It's a much different plan as far as how fast we want to go and the scale we want to do it in, and so that's another cool thing. Across the state with all these areas You've got variety. They're not all programmed. None of them are programmed the same way.
Speaker 2:That's right, and, as we're kind of getting winding up here, there's one thing that we haven't talked about that, I think, is actually's it's.
Speaker 2:I don't think it's less important today, but I think as we, as these port areas expand, um, people will get to know more about this, and that is the foreign trade zone ftz's okay yeah okay, so foreign trade zone is federally designated area inside the united states, but treat it as if it's outside us customs territory for duty and terror purposes right, so you can get them poor goods, store them, assemble them, manufacture products inside the United States. But treat it as if it's outside US Customs territory for duty and tariff purposes right, so you can get them pour goods, store them, assemble them, manufacture products inside the zone before paying any duties. Okay, that's an interesting thing right there for businesses. Certain businesses Duties are paid only when the goods enter US commerce. If they're re-exported, no duties are paid at all. So key benefits for businesses duty deferral, duty reduction, duty elimination, logistics efficiency and cash flow advantage. So there's some really stacked on benefits.
Speaker 2:How does it work here in Utah? Because this is important. It's important to the Port Authority's mission. Utah's main FTZ is FTZ number 30. It's based in Salt Lake City. It operates under the Alternative Site Framework, asf, which allows businesses within 60 miles or 90 minutes of the zone to apply for subzone or usage-driven site status. This means Northwest Quadrant is directly inside the FTZ number 30. So many and many of the port project areas Golden Spikes, willow Valley, west Weaver, iron Springs are eligible for FTZ subzone status, even if they're far from downtown Salt Lake City.
Speaker 1:I didn't even know that. Dave, that's new information for me. Thank you for sharing. That's a big deal.
Speaker 2:Well, and this is where this goes. So the Port Authority has the legal authority, you, for sharing that's, that's a big deal. Well, I will miss is where this goes. So you, uh, the port authority has the has the legal authority to establish ftz's inside the project areas. Oh wow, so under utah law they can create or sponsor foreign trade zone designations with any of any of its project areas if a business requests it.
Speaker 2:I mean it's, it's, it's a process. Yeah, it's not easy, it's not like you just built. Yeah, it's, it's, it's going to be a thing, but it's going process. Yeah, it's not easy, it's not like you just fill it. Yeah, it's, it's, it's going to be a thing, but it's going to be valuable for certain kinds of businesses. They can also partner with Salt Lake city the official FTZ number 30 grantee to extend coverage to new sites. So this opens up all kinds of interesting strategies for types of you know, depending upon your type of business, for manufacturing and then shipping outside the U? S and and helping avoid some of these things. And and as that gets going and as they start to shore up their relationship with Salt Lake International and we're having flight and rail, those kinds of assets get connected to all of these areas, if they're not already connected. That's where this starts to maybe evolve in a way that takes on a whole different kind of color yeah, wow, thanks for bringing that up.
Speaker 1:That's a great final thought. I'm gonna study up on that because I wonder if that's, uh, if that has reciprocal value of on-shoring business into one of these zones and that could be legacy, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. We're seeing this, all the tariffs we're seeing apple just announced a 500 billion dollar commitment to bring its manufacturing back to the us. That's a big deal that we have a long list of of manufacturers who want to be in utah, who are currently in other countries india, china, thailand, all over the world and you know, because of this Trump administration, you know the United States is the new hot place to be for manufacturing and so that you have an FTZ zone to be able to create that in a port project area in Utah is a big deal. That's great, okay, guys. Well, we hope you got as much out of this as I did and we hope you'll join us for the next episode.
Speaker 2:Until next time on the Frontier Line.
