Alliance Makes Three for North Texas Customs Inspection Sites

"I would love to be so busy that they have to have a customs office here," Steve Boecking, the Hillwood subsidiary's vice president, tells GlobeSt.com. He has allocated 4,000 sf of the 80,000 sf that the division occupies at 400 Intermodal Parkway in AllianceTexas. But, he says, he has up to 50,000 sf if necessary.

Boecking estimates that 3% to 5% of the 400,000 containers coming into the Burlington Northern Santa Fe intermodal yard in Alliance are sidetracked for inspection. That doesn't include inspections of the more than 200,000 tons of goods flowing in annually through the neighboring Fort Worth Alliance Airport.

Prior to the designation, the containers most often were transported some 50 miles one way into South Dallas for inspection, unloaded, processed and returned to Alliance. He pegs the cost at $400 to $500 per container. That's now changed. Unloading can be done on site, in the protection of a foreign trade zone and any problems remedied without leaving the station's bounds, he boasts. The inspecting officer already is assigned to Alliance Airport, one the world's leading air cargo facilities.

Boecking says he is lobbying for a full-fledged customs office to open, but that's down the road and naturally would hinge on the US Customs Service's ability to foot the bill. The amount of inspections obviously would dictate the need. At this stage of the game, Boecking says he just doesn't know how many containers will be flagged for inspections.

The service, Boecking points out, is not just for the 100 companies located at AllianceTexas, but rather the entire region. The customs service, in the end, has the say as to where the flagged containers go for inspections. The region's third inspection station is located at the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport.