Construction on new port to begin next month

Although some initial work has been done at the site of the new San Luis port of entry, construction isn't expected to begin until sometime next year.

According to Gary Magrino, chairman of the Greater Yuma Port Authority (GYPA) board, the contractor hired to build the new port has secured the site with a chain-link fence and brought in some heavy equipment to do the preliminary groundwork.

"There is a lot of activity there getting things prepared," Magrino said. "Everyone is excited to see the progress being made."

Magrino said the actual construction is scheduled to begin sometime in January. An official groundbreaking will be held in February, he added, but no date has been set.

The new $42 million facility is being built by the federal government on an 80-acre site five miles east of San Luis, Ariz. Completion of the port, which was funded in the 2006 federal budget, is slated for mid- to late-2009.

Once completed, the new San Luis port will handle all the commercial traffic crossing the local U.S.-Mexico border in San Luis. The existing port of entry will remain open for pedestrian and private vehicle traffic.

Also, work is under way on the Area Service Highway, which will connect the new port with Interstate 8, bypassing more congested and developed areas. The four-lane, controlled-access highway will border the Barry M. Goldwater military range and connect to the freeway near Araby Road.

Magrino also said he was notified Monday that the the General Services Administration is getting slightly more than $7 million to reconfigure the existing port.

"This money will be used to redesign the port," Magrino said. "The following year, we will get money to rebuild it."

U.S. Sen. Jon Kyl confirmed the news Monday, saying the $7.053 million is included in an omnibus appropriations bill that would be passed by the House that (Monday) night and by the Senate either today (Tuesday) or Wednesday.

"It only came about because there was extra money in the federal budget for projects like this," Kyl said in a phone interview from his Washington, D.C., office. "This is good news because it means we are essentially getting the money ahead of time. We weren't going to make the request until next year."

Kyl explained that Congress did not pass all the appropriations bills before it ended this session. So they were all combined in a single spending bill, which will be passed by a single vote.

The $7-million-plus for the existing port will come from the $225 million worth of appropriations in the omnibus bill.

The current San Luis port is strained to capacity. Commercial truck traffic is mixed with pedestrian and private vehicle traffic, causing delays in the movement of goods through the port.

According to GYPA officials, 46,000 to 47,000 commercial vehicles cross the border in San Luis annually. The real strain on the current port, according to port officials, comes from foot and private motor traffic. A total of 2.6 million pedestrians and more than 3 million drivers passed through the port in 2006.

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James Gilbert can be reached at jgilbert@yumasun.com or 539-6854.