Utah Inland Port Authority secures $150 million for public infrastructure

The Utah Inland Port Authority (UIPA) has sold its Crossroads Public Infrastructure District Tax Differential bonds, securing $150 million in funding for public infrastructure, the agency said today.

After fees, the bond closing gives UIPA approximately $112 million in revenue to kick off a slate of proposed projects in the northwest Salt Lake Valley, officials said. Those include a transloading/cross-dock facility, which will leverage existing infrastructure and Union Pacific Railroad’s intermodal rail hub as an option for cargo owners to move freight. The agency said it may also use proceeds from the bonds for rail infrastructure and expansion, a Foreign Trade Zone (FTZ) and U.S. Customs facility, and to support telecommunications infrastructure as part of UIPA’s Intelligent Crossroads Network, a private LTE/5G network dedicated to the supply chain.

UIPA’s board created the Crossroads Public Infrastructure District (PID) in October 2021 as a funding mechanism for publicly owned infrastructure within UIPA’s jurisdictional area in the Salt Lake valley.

“This offering demonstrated the need for problem solvers to address the supply chain challenges we’re facing,” Jill Flygare, executive director of the Utah Inland Port Authority Crossroads Public Infrastructure District, said in a press release. “There is a huge opportunity to enhance logistics in Utah, and it is exciting to have so many national investors who want to be part of what we’re doing.”

The UIPA is a multimodal logistics agency that plans to develop a system of rural connections or “satellite ports” that serve as nodes in the Utah logistics system.