Falls mayor: Ranier takes lead as busiest rail port in North America

“I am seeing action, not just talk,” she said of the governor and state officials.

“The state is rolling up its sleeves,” she said, noting the visit to the Falls and Boise Inc.’s paper mill next week by Mark Phillips, the commissioner of the state’s Department of Employment and Economic Development.

At the October summit, Mason said she told Dayton that the area was the second busiest rail port in North America.

In her phone conversation on Thanksgiving, she said she told the governor that was no longer true, and Dayton began to express concern.

“Then I told him it was because we are No. 1,” she said. “I told him, ‘It’s an incredible asset for the state of Minnesota and you are the only elected official of that capacity in North America.’ I told him to stand on the mountain tops and shout this great state’s asset that no other state in the union can claim.”

Mason said she wants Dayton and DEED officials, when they meet with investors and on marketing trips, to add the area’s claim as the busiest rail port to their top 10 list of economic assets of Minnesota.

“We used to think that I Falls was at the end of the road, but as it relates to transportation and logistics, we’re right smack dab in the middle,” she said. “What an advantage is that for companies seeking that kind of operations within a business plan.”

Paul Nevanen, director of the county’s main economic development agency, said the status as busiest rail port in North America validates local efforts toward bringing business into the foreign trade zone, which is located near Ranier and connected to the rail line.

“We keep going back to how to take advantage of that by creating an environment out there, to create the right infrastructure and we see that as strategic in terms of the supply chain for various customers,” the director of the Koochiching Economic Development Authority said.

Nevanen said the No. 1 rail port status “is another good mark, another good indictor that we are doing the right things.”

Canadian National Railway’s investment in a project at Ranier is another validation of the value of the FTZ and the rail line there, said Nevanen.

Meanwhile, Mason said the area’s economic tool box is filling. The new claim as busiest rail port, combined with other assets, will assist the city and its Economic Development Authority to market the area.

“We can’t sit and wait for the companies to come to us and then help them,” she said. “We need to be head hunters and we have an aggressive approach.”

She noted that another tool is the 200 acres the city will soon be able to use as wetland market credits. She said the credits will assist the Good Samaritan Society-International Falls and the Rainy Lake Medical Center hospital campus with plans to move their facilities to Keenan Drive.

In addition, she said developments on the west end of the city, as well as continued efforts toward private development along Rainy River on the east end of the city’s limits, will help spur additional growth.

“Our time is coming,” she said.

The new status and the CN project indicates that the economy is gaining strength, said Nevanen.

“We’ve asked DEED for more advocacy and awareness when they are stumping for the state of Minnesota on trade missions or regional conferences,” said Nevanen. “They can say, ‘We’ve got this place in Minnesota, strategically positioned in the center of North America, where there are trains already stopping and a business park,’” he said.

“Any activity, even the start of something, will lead to other folks looking at us. It’s difficult getting that first bite.”