The North Carolina Railroad Company (NCRR) is a private corporation whose stock is owned by the State of North Carolina. The Company manages the use of 317 miles of track stretching from Charlotte to the Port of Morehead City. The Company’s mission is to put the North Carolina Railroad Company to work for the good of the people of North Carolina and improve our state by expanding freight rail opportunities to grow business, enabling rail to move people and investing in North Carolina.
Global Location Strategies was commissioned by the North Carolina Railroad Company to assist in the evaluation of its newly developed Build Ready Sites program. The program’s mission is to enhance the state’s portfolio of available, rail-served sites that can meet future projects’ stringent timelines, while reducing development risk.
North Carolina Railroad led the program, in partnership with GLS, to collect community submissions, evaluate their sites, verify their information, and ultimately issue financial support for the highest-ranking locations. Field visits were conducted by the project team to further verify the information provided in the submissions. NCRR, with assistance from GLS, utilized our proprietary analysis platform to score ten locations based on predetermined factors. Using this technology to evaluate the locations took any bias out of the decision-making process and delivered the most impactful sites for further investment.
In 2021, its inaugural year, the North Carolina Railroad Company issued $2.92 million to rail-served sites in six counties across North Carolina through its new Build Ready Sites initiative.
In 2022, the company issued $3.9 million in seven counties and eight projects across the state as part of its Build Ready Site program.
In 2023, NCRR issued $2 million to rail-served sites in four counties across North Carolina.
The program is ongoing.