BELEN — A full house of business and community leaders and residents applauded and cheered when BNSF recently presented its master plan for the Southwest region and detailed how Belen fit into that picture.
The plan describes how the nationwide railroad plans to create a multimodal logistics center in nearby Rancho Cielo, which will include distribution, warehousing and manufacturing facilities.
Belen has a high-performing rail artery running parallel to Rancho Cielo, the 6,000 acres of land on the west side of Interstate 25. BNSF plans to tap into that artery, said LaTonya R. Finch, the regional manager of economic development for BNSF.
“That artery has gone right by you. It’s time to connect,” Finch said.
BNSF has six transcontinental lines, three running north-south and three running east-west, one of which is a primary intermodal corridor running through Valencia County with a transcontinental fueling facility in Belen, from Los Angeles ports to Chicago. The corridor transports $3.9 trillion worth of products, Finch said.
In the master plan, BNSF will act as a development adviser and market the Rancho Cielo site to attract those seeking to purchase and lease land for the development of on-site industrial facilities. The large-scale industrial park facility would include mega-transload operators that move products by rail and truck, making the service available to additional customers.
The state-of-the art and high-tech hub will have rail, road, air and seaport distribution service to local, national and international customers supporting the global supply chain, Finch said.
“It will provide a footprint for an employment hub, a transportation hub and an industrial hub that quite frankly doesn’t exist statewide. It will be unique to central New Mexico,” she said.
Rancho Cielo is planned to be mixed use, including residential, commercial, employment and industrial, which makes the area a perfect fit for BNSF’s master plan, Finch said.
The utilities in Rancho Cielo are complete with water and sewer availability, said Finch, as well as fiber optics and hydrogen fuel pipelines running along the corridor.
Four years ago, BNSF started researching what the forecast looked like, as far as transportation and population growth for the Albuquerque and Belen area.
“We wanted to understand the demand associated with what the market is becoming and find out what’s happening in the market today,” Finch said.
The comprehensive study, completed in about eight months, found “this area has huge untapped potential,” Finch said.
The master plan aims to predict the growth of the area in the next 25 years and use that information to take the logistics center to new levels of performance and productivity.
“We’re helping not just to respond, but to help ignite the market and help trigger the market,” Finch said.
In order to set the master plan into play, an anchor tenant needs to come into Rancho Cielo, which Finch said could take a couple of years. The master plan and location will be opened up to the local, national and international exposure to attract one or several anchor tenants.
Once an anchor tenant is found, Jim Wood, vice president of New Mexico Developments LP, who also owns Rancho Cielo, said he will continue work on the Interstate 25 interchange connecting the railway to Rancho Cielo.
“We’re not going to complete the interchange until we have the first anchor, and then we’ll complete it,” Wood said.
