BOWIE COUNTY, Texas - Work on land near Red River Army Depot is not happening because online retailer Amazon is building there, despite rumors that circulated on social media this week.
The rumors, however, do contain a germ of truth, as the land is in the first steps of being certified for use by a major employer such as Amazon or Walmart, which local economic development advocates hope to entice to the site.
In May, Bowie County, the cities of Hooks and New Boston, and economic development group AR-TX REDI partnered to buy the land - 847 acres with frontage on Interstate 30 - for $1.5 million, naming it the East Texas Logistics Center. The plan is to offer the land as incentive for a company to locate a distribution center there, bringing new jobs to the region. But a preliminary process of answering questions about the site, leading to an official certification, must come first.
"I'd be ecstatic and happy to talk about Amazon coming to the area if it were true, but it just isn't true at this point. Now that's not to say that somewhere in the future we won't have conversations.
"There is work going on out there. It's just the site certification process," REDI CEO Rob Sitterley said Tuesday.
The work includes surveying, some clearing of the land, environmental studies, subsurface exploration and wetland delineation, all of which Sitterley expects to be completed by the end of the year.
"There's a million questions you have to answer. Where's the water? Where's the sewer? Where's all that going to come from? What's the cost of doing all that? A lot of that has already been done by me with the help of the city of New Boston.
"It's just trying to answer any questions a business might have. Is it any good? Can we build here? Are there environmental problems? Are there traffic issues? All those questions are being answered," Sitterley said.
The process will culminate with certification by a firm called Global Location Strategies, whose stamp of approval Sitterley described as authoritative.
"They've got a reputation. Businesses, companies like Amazon, Walmart, you name whatever other big box warehouse and distribution that may want to put in a logistics center, if they looked and saw that we had a certified stamp from Global Location Strategies, they wouldn't ask a whole lot of questions about what we've got there," he said.
An industrial site of more than 1,300 acres in Texarkana, Arkansas, will undergo a similar certification process once its purchase is completed. REDI worked closely with the city and Miller County developing a deal to buy the tract for more than $4 million using bonds issued by the local Public Facilities Board. The purchase is expected to close by Dec. 22, Sitterley said.