An inland facility supporting the Port of Pensacola could boost regional economic development efforts or waste a lot of money, a University of West Florida official said last week.

“We haven’t really needed one of these facilities in the past,”  Phyllis Pooley, associate director of UWF’s Haas Center for Business Research and Economic Development, told the Florida-Alabama Transportation Planning Organization at its Aug. 13 meeting.  “Do we need one now? Probably not. Do we need one in the future? That’s what we have to decide.”
In August 2007, the TPO approved paying the Haas Center $40,000 to study the feasibility of building an  “inland port intermodal terminal”  to serve the city-owned deepwater port.
Such a facility is feasible, Pooley said, under specific conditions.
“You must have a firm business plan,”  Pooley warned.  “This is not a case of  ‘If you build it, they will come.’ ”

 

For more on this story, see the Aug. 21 issue of Navarre Press or subscribe online