Testimonials

We’ve seen a significant increase of new tenants, new users to St. Louis. We used to quote that 17% of all deals were new to St. Louis, meaning they didn’t have a presence here. That’s doubled. It’s in the 30, 30-plus percent range.

Kaskaskia Regional Port District is poised for significant growth. With these upgrades, we’re going to have great capacity within our terminals to move cargo to any tenant that wants to locate there.

This continuing public and private sector collaboration is essential to the ongoing efforts that are helping to transition vacant abandoned industrial sites into developable, ready-to-market sites.

The St. Louis region remains primed to take its place as a global hub for logistics and the movement of goods throughout the United States and internationally. This list of [priority] projects goes a long way toward achievement of that goal.

A project I think that could give the region the same strategic advantage [as KC or Indianapolis] is the expansion of the Union Pacific Intermodal Yard in Dupo, Illinois. It could put us on par with our rival cities by giving us cost competitive connectivity to the major West Coast ports.

The list of current and future infrastructure projects occurring across the Bi-State St. Louis region will not only allow freight to move more safely through the region, but also enable strategic advantages for companies looking to reduce costs and run leaner supply chains. Once these [priority] projects are completed, these improvements will benefit not only the companies located in the Bi-State region, but companies throughout North America that use the St. Louis region as a corridor for moving their freight.

This type of progress doesn’t happen overnight. We continually invest the time and effort and lay the foundation to make sure that all necessary parties are familiar with our priorities and understand why they are priorities, so they can advocate for funding for them. It’s tremendous validation to see projects on our list move forward and contribute to the enhancement of our region’s freight network.

We have over 3,000 Gulfstream aircraft flying around the world today. As our fleet continues to grow, it is necessary that we expand our facilities and customer offerings. The greater St. Louis region is an area we’ve strategically identified to further invest in to support this growth. The local workforce and partnerships we’veestablished are invaluable. The strong relationships that we currently have with local educational institutions, Bi-State Development, local government and community leaders, and the phenomenal group at the St. Louis Downtown Airport have certainly contributed to our decision to continue to expand here.

Boeing has had a long-standing presence in the community. It’s because of the partnerships, the relationships at all levels within this ecosystem, whether that’s with the airports, non-profits, business community, local and state chambers, and economic development organizations.

Rail has been the backbone of the economy for a long time, and we are confident it is here to stay.

We’ve also invested over $600 million in rail facilities so that every one of our marine terminals has on or near dock rail, and we have capacity for over one and a half million lifts of rail cargo alone. It’s our view and our vision that rail cargo and intermodal cargo to places like St. Louis is what’s going to help us grow and continue to grow and be a major port gateway, not just on the East Coast, but in the country into the future.

The I-70 reconstruction and expansion between St. Louis and Kansas City is a game changer. The St. Louis region is a distribution metro, and distribution relies on trucks and those trucks rely on the smooth, safe movement of freight. Chicago is a big competitor and is fed by two major east-west interstates, I-80 and I-90. If we are going to remain relevant and competitive, we have to have good connections on I-70. It is our major east-west corridor. That project is crucial to the region and will be a big part of our future successes.

The epicenter of this construction boom is along the I-70 bi-state corridor, including I-70 and portions of I-170, I270, and I-370 running from Missouri to Illinois. This is a major logistics corridor supported with more than $600 million of roadway infrastructure investment, which will help to foster continued growth among the national manufacturers, suppliers and distributors choosing to locate in the corridor.

I think it’s important to understand just how big of a role the waterway system plays and the impact it has on our everyday life. The Mississippi River system alone serves 23 different states – export, import, and a lot of other stuff. We live in a good time to do maritime innovation, and we’ve seen unprecedented money and grants being allocated for the ports community in the U.S., and for general logistics and supply chain with the infrastructure bill. There’s just so much potential right now.

We utilize dredging to provide safe, efficient, and reliable movement to keep commerce flowing on the Mississippi River in support of the nation’s economy. Over 500 million tons – half of all U.S. grain exports – transit the Mississippi River at some point annually.

Despite some recent low runoff years, I think it’s important to note that these are really exciting times for navigation on the Missouri River. The most recent numbers from 2020 show that over 5.4 million tons were moving on the Missouri River, which is a significant increase over the 2019 number of 3.9 million tons. And that’s a mix of sand and gravel being the largest piece, in addition to fertilizer, petroleum products, grain and a lot of other things as well.

I think it’s important to realize that our farmers are going to continue to adopt new technologies, which are going to continue to allow us to grow more and more volumes of grain, and exports are critical to the profitability of our farmers. We’re going to be demanding and needing more transportation of all modes. When we look at what mode is somewhat underutilized, I’d say there’s room for growth on the river, so we’re excited about that. Our waterways give us a strategic advantage and we need to leverage that.

All this funding that’s been coming for our port facilities has just been tremendous, and I just can’t thank enough those who are now realizing the importance of ports throughout the country. The Port District, like many other ports in the region and throughout the country, are economic development generators. We are here for the purpose of creating jobs, and we do that through a lot of investment in our property that tries to attract companies.

I think it’s important for people to realize that we are by far the busiest inland port. We have approximately 130 facilities in our harbor on both sides of the river. We just have so many different options, and we have ultimate flexibility and last mile in and out options for people.

This is a really exciting project for us and is the culmination of 12 years of technology history in the transportation industry and is one of the most impactful projects we’ve worked on in our lifetime. When we started this project, we were calling it the data visibility tool, and Noel and his team came up with the moniker, the Supply Chain Information Highway. I thought that was really insightful because a highway is simply infrastructure and, by itself, doesn’t provide value. It is value transiting along that infrastructure that is the really important element for the nation. And so as we continue to build out the Supply Chain Information Highway, usage is what brings value.

The Port of New Orleans is proud to be a global gateway to the middle of the United States and into Canada through the St. Louis corridor of the Mississippi River system. Port NOLA’s continued collaboration with the St. Louis Regional Freightway plays an important role in the continued success of our container-on-barge service which expands shipping options to inland markets while honoring our commitment to sustainability.

We need to be moving more containers via the Mississippi River in order to take advantage of barge transportation as the most cost-effective and environmentally friendly mode of transportation. As the Port of New Orleans grows, so, too, does our hope that the container-on-barge service at our Madison Harbor in the St. Louis area can ramp up and achieve its full potential.

Leveraging the competitive advantages with Port NOLA’s supply chains is key to strengthening the nation’s global competitiveness. Projects like the Louisiana International Terminal project will further benefit freight volume efficiency for agricultural commodities for regions like St. Louis and other inland ports.

The amount of river business in the St. Louis region has disproportionately increased over the past three decades. This region is a rail and interstate highway gateway. It is more cost-effective to move commodities into, out of and through St. Louis by combinations of truck, rail and barge than points upstream on the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers. Barge loading and unloading capacity has expanded in the St. Louis area to take advantage of these train rates and barge freight rate adjustments.

The St. Louis to New Orleans barge route is one of the most efficient logistics export steams in the U.S., and there typically is an abundance of corn in the region. St. Louis is directly tied to U.S. export markets, including China, so any increase in trade volumes would improve operational conditions.