The best location for Norfolk Southern Corp. to build its proposed Roanoke-area cargo terminal is Elliston, a village just west of Roanoke, state officials said Monday in a long-awaited decision.
The Norfolk-based railroad wants to build an $18 million facility in that area to switch cargo containers between trucks and trains. It would be part of the roughly $260 million Heartland Corridor, a project Norfolk Southern is building to speed container trains between the port of Hampton Roads and the Midwest.
In 2006, Norfolk Southern identified Elliston as its preferred location for a terminal. However, strong community opposition resulted, prompting the state to step into the dispute.
Matthew O. Tucker, director of the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation, said the approximately 65-acre Elliston site was the only suitable location out of 10 examined by the agency.
Virginia is providing 70 percent of the terminal's cost, or about $12.6 million, Tucker said. The state believes the project will create jobs and will help take trucks off the state's congested highways.
In total, the project is expected to cost $35 million, a figure that includes a second phase plus $6.3 million for relocating a road.
Officials with Montgomery County, which includes Elliston, said they were "extremely disappointed" with the state's decision. The project will lower the area's quality of life by bringing increased traffic and noise and
by degrading air and water quality, Annette Perkins, the chairwoman of the county's Board of Supervisors, said in a statement.
"This is not the type of economic development Montgomery County wishes to locate here, " she said.
Neither Tucker nor John Friedmann, Norfolk Southern's assistant vice president for strategic planning, would say when construction would begin. The railroad still needs to acquire the land and receive various government approvals.
Gregory Richards, (757) 446-2599, gregory.richards@pilotonline.com
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