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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

CentrePort primed for takeoff

-- Will soon release first-ever business plan -- Construction on expressway to begin

By: Martin Cash

Posted: 04/23/2010 1:00 AM | Comments: 0 (including replies)

CENTREPORT Canada is about to take the next step to becoming a fully realized enterprise with the release of its first-ever business plan in the next few weeks.

But even before that happens, construction on the $212.5-million CentrePort Way expressway will begin and, within the next two weeks, a detailed design plan for sewer and water servicing will go before city council.

Diane Gray, CentrePort's CEO, would not reveal the estimated cost of the servicing, other than to say it will be much less than $50 million and would likely be sufficient for the next 20 years worth of development at CentrePort.

She said the roadway construction and land servicing are key components that have to be in place before CentrePort begins marketing the inland port.

"We have had plenty of interest and have had discussions with interested parties, but we are not yet in a position to start making pitches to potential anchor tenants," she said Thursday.

But Gray did say an announcement on what would essentially be CentrePort's first new tenant will be made early this summer.

CentrePort Canada is the non-share capital corporation responsible for managing the development at the 20,000-acre site west and north of the airport, marketing the inland port and providing a one-stop shop for Foreign Trade Zone (FTZ) benefits.

CentrePort will not be a land developer, but has started spurring the development of smaller industrial parks in and around Inkster Boulevard and Brookside Boulevard.

As part of the $212.5-million roadway development, Inkster will be widened to four lanes and is already being seen as a prime development site.

FTZ benefits -- little-used and complicated federal benefits that are administered by four different departments -- can provide incentives for companies that establish operations in the FTZ area of CentrePort who are importing goods that are designated for export.

The benefits could include duty deferrals, federal and provincial sales tax exemptions and customs-bonded warehouses.

"It (FTZ benefits) have never been marketed well and are made difficult to access and implement," Gray said. "In our research we found that there were virtually no Manitoba companies who have taken advantage of the program."

She said CentrePort's challenge is to provide a "common lexicon" that would be familiar to those who use FTZs in the United States and Mexico.

In addition to the FTZ benefits, Gray said CentrePort has also been designated as a tax-increment financing (TIF) zone.

She said the TIF benefits -- which either allow new developments a property tax holiday or designate additional tax revenue from a new development to be used for improvements in the immediate vicinity -- could be deployed on a case-by-case basis.

She said the city will likely want to first receive a return on its investment in the servicing of the area before it starts handing out tax holidays to new CentrePort tenants.

Gray said that in its early planning stages, she does not want to be guilty of selling promises.

For instance, she said it is not likely CentrePort would be able to become an import distribution centre like the massive Alliance centre in Dallas-Fort Worth, because there is not a large enough local population to support that.

She said one strategy that is being investigated is some sort of back-haul operation to Mexico or Asia that would take advantage of the abundance of empty containers in North America.

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition April 23, 2010 B4

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