Duane Hicks
With an increase in inspection duties and staffing in recent years, U.S. Customs and Border Protection in International Falls has outgrown its facility.
As such, the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) is undertaking a Border Crossing Improvements Feasibility Study to determine the need for a new one.
The reason for the study is that since the new facility was built in 1993, the former U.S. Customs Service and Immigration and Naturalization Service have combined into U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Donald R. Melcher Jr., project manager with the Land Ports of Entry Division of the GSA, said yesterday from Chicago.
“Although the facility is not that old, since the creation of the [U.S.] Department of Homeland Security, which blended several different federal agencies under one umbrella . . . it changed the way they managed the border and increased staffing levels,” Melcher noted.
The study began about a year ago, when U.S. Customs and Border Protection approached GSA and indicated it had a list of requirements it needed met in order “to adequately do their business at the border, in terms of space and facility needs and manpower levels,” he explained.
“What they asked us to do is take those requirements and investigate the existing facilities—we try to maximize our existing assets wherever possible,” he noted. “So we looked at these new requirements they had in terms of what the existing facilities are, and, in the study process, came up with a number of options.
“Then in consultation with [U.S.] Customs and Border Protection, we narrowed those down to three for further investigation.”
The three options, narrowed down from an initial eight, include:
•a portion of the Boise parking lot;
•a portion of the Boise parking lot and the entire block between Second Street and Third Street, between Second Avenue and Third Avenue; and
•routing all traffic entering the U.S. via a secure corridor along the river, about a half-mile east to a facility located between Highway 11 East and the Rainy River.
In addition to consulting U.S. Customs and Border Protection and affiliated agencies, the GSA also has been in contact with Boise, the City of International Falls, the Falls Chamber of Commerce, and the Visitor and Convention Bureau.
Melcher said the feasibility study likely will be completed by the end of March, giving the GSA sufficient information to prepare a prospectus.
This project proposal then will be submitted to the GSA office in Washington, D.C. and further analyzed before being passed on to Congress for approval and funding authorization.
The GSA may learn by October, at the earliest, whether or not the project will go ahead, although project funding will be available until the 2010 fiscal year.
If it gets the nod, the GSA will get approval to proceed with site acquisition and hiring an architect, and eventually finding a contractor.
Melcher noted the GSA also will conduct investigations under the U.S. National Environmental Policy Act, and consider environmental and socio-economic factors.
This will include a series of public meetings to explain the need for the new facility and gather input, which could take six months to a year.
Construction won’t begin until 2011 at the earliest, he added.
