SANTA TERESA, NM-The groundbreaking of the long-anticipated $400 million Union Pacific rail yard and terminal took place Aug. 8 with New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez and U.S. Sen Jeff Bingaman in attendance. The rail yard will mean more than freight trains traveling through this southwest corner of New Mexico, however.

“Any time anyone spends a half a billion dollars on a project of this type, it’s good for the whole neighborhood,” comments Gary Sapp, president of Hunt Development Group’s southwest division in El Paso, TX.  The rail yard, to be located on approximately 2,200 acres due west of the Santa Teresa Airport, will include fueling facilities, crew change buildings, locomotive inspection tracks, an intermodal ramp and a switching yard.

Terminals like those built by Union Pacific attract real estate in the form of warehouses and manufacturing. Terminals like this one also can provide services to already existing project, such as the 400-acre Foxconn development, located right across the U.S.-Mexico border in San Jeronimo, Mexico. Foxconn, the giant Chinese manufacturer, completed its San Jeronimo development in 2009.

“The Foxconn project is about half a mile from the new terminal,” says Sapp, whose jurisdiction includes New Mexico as well as Texas and other parts of the southwest. “With this new terminal, Foxconn can take advantage of better border crossing and the transportation infrastructure on the U.S. side that supports truck, rail and air transit.”

Geopolitics also shines a beneficial light on the new UP terminal as well. Anyone who has read a newspaper or watched television in recent months knows there have been problems in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, right across the border from El Paso, TX. Gangs are taking control of Juarez, and certain parts of the city aren’t safe.

Sapp tells GlobeSt.com that while the Juarez economic development department says no manufacturers have left Juarez and many are actually expanding, “American executives commute to and from plants in Juarez in armored SUVs,” he comments. “Santa Teresa, meanwhile, offers a highly secure, immediately accessible manufacturing facility across the border.” Santa Teresa is approximately 13 miles northwest of El Paso and Juarez, making it convenient as well for border crossings.

Terminals such as the type UP broke ground on take years to complete and to be of service to the region. Sapp believes that, once the terminal comes online, it will become an active portal between Mexico and the United States. “What it could look like is a border version of Alliance (the Alliance Global Logistics Hub in Fort Worth; an inland port served by both the Union Pacific and Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroads), in which you have the major transportation infrastructure pieces converging,” he adds.