CENTREPORT CANADA – WINNIPEG Canada's only Free Trade Zone (FTZ) creates intermodal rail port for central Canada Centreport Canada Inc. CEO Diane Gray Canadian Design and Construction Report staff writer You might, at first thought, do a double take when someone tells you that Winnipeg is building a massive port. After all, while the central Canadian city has four rivers, the Red, Assiniboine, La Salle and Seine, most observers would not credit these waterways as major trade or ship- ping channels. However, Diane Gray, president and chief executive of- ficer of Centreport Canada Inc., says Winnipeg has excel- lent rail links – it is the only major city in Canada with three major interconnecting lines – as well as a solid airport with- out excessive congestion or access restrictions. The rail lines link Winnipeg to east, west, and US gulf ports, as well as Churchill, Manitoba. Could all of these elements be connected with new road/highway connections, bonded warehouses, and serv- ices infrastructure to create a land port? Centreport has taken shape as a result and early indica- tions are the project is succeeding. The new (and currently Canada's only) Foreign Trade Zone (FTZ) and tri-modal inland port “gives a bottom line advantage to rail-intensive businesses – as much as $10 per tonne” in shipping costs. “You are saving tens of thou- sands of dollar for every train shipping,” she told a gather- ing at the Construction Specifications Canada (CSC) conference in Winnipeg. 4 – July-August 2015 — The Canadian Design and Construction Report The inland port, sitting on 20,000 dedicated acres, par- tially within Winnipeg's urban boundaries and partially out- side, has special zoning and land-use restrictions to ensure its transportation and business efficiency. '”Developers have a good sense of when the infrastruc- ture is going in,” she said. “We have a form-based zoning bylaw. They (developers) know what are allowed uses. We are eliminating conditional uses or variances.” “You need to develop according to the rules . . . if you follow the rules, you are in.” Since the project started in 2008 – 09 with special Man- itoba legislation, it has attracted 39 new companies and more than 200 acres of new development, Gray said. Plan- ners anticipate an additional 71 companies will set up shop in the FTZ over the next five yeas, and about 500 acres of industrial absorbtion within the next decade. Design is under way on a rail park, integrating rail lines and manufacturing/warehouse facilities to reduce shipping costs and facilitate assembly based on materials arriving from different locations. As well, infrastructure has been constructed or will be soon to ensure the overall project can absorb the in- creased business activity. “Under construction is a $45 million water treatment facility,” Gray said. The $212.4 mil- lion CentrePort Canada Way, “the single largest construc- tion project in Manitoba's history,” has connected the FTZ to the highway system.