BUILD grant to help fund rail transload facility near Spokane airport

The Spokane International Airport Board in Washington will receive an $11.3 million federal grant for a project to develop vacant land into a freight hub connecting rail and road infrastructure, U.S. Sens. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and Patty Murray (D-Wash.) announced late last week.

The grant will be awarded under the U.S. Department of Transportation's Better Utilizing Investment to Leverage Development (BUILD) program.

"As Spokane continues to grow as a regional leader in commerce and trade, I’m glad to see this impactful investment flow to the Spokane Airport to bolster its rail and freight transportation capabilities," said Murray in a press release.

The grant will help fund construction of a new rail-truck transload facility at the airport to improve multimodal freight movement, Murray and Cantwell said. The project will extend existing rail lines about 3 miles to the airport to provide space for train loading, offloading and circulation, as well as additional room for freight-truck movement.

Once completed, the facility is projected to handle as much as 1.3 million tons of annual rail capacity.

The freight connections at the airport "will mean less congestion on our roads and more efficient transportation for goods, promoting economic growth and job growth in the West Plains," Cantwell said.