LA PORTE, Ind. — A court order issued last week gets the ball moving again on a project that would create many jobs and provide farmers in the Midwest and South an opportunity to reach more customers with fresh produce and other food products.

The court action in northwestern Indiana resulted from the proposed intermodal facility in Kingsbury for months now grinding to a halt. LaPorte County Circuit Court Judge Tom Alevizos approved a motion by Halfwassen Group LLC to appoint a receiver to primarily market the site to prospective developers, while the equal landowners work out their differences in court.

The appointment of a receiver is viewed as critical for speeding up the process of finding a developer with the two landowners stalled from progressing with the project any further because of their legal deadlock.

“There’s a lot at stake here with this development,” said La Porte County attorney Shaw Friedman. 

Halfwassen Group owned the entire intermodal site until selling half of the acreage to INland Logistics Port in Kingsbury under a loan, said Edward Sullivan, a South Bend attorney representing Halfwassen Group.

The money from the sale was used by Halfwassen Group as collateral for securing a $6 million loan from La Porte County to finance extension of a CSX rail spur to the site to service the proposed development at Kingsbury Industrial Park.

INland Logistics Port, though, missed its first payment of $90,000 to Halfwassen Group, which has taken legal steps to take back the land it sold to INland Logistics Port because of the still delinquent payment, said Sullivan.

If successful in its bid to reacquire the acreage, Halfwassen Group will become the sole proprietors of the site, breaking the deadlock that now exists and eliminating the need for a receiver with Halfwassen Group able to work solely toward finding a developer.

Carl Greci, another attorney from South Bend representing Halfwassen Group, said the legal action by his client shows its commitment to developing the site. 

“It’s the right thing to do for the parties involved in the dispute because we want to make sure this great idea for the Kingsbury park will have the ability to move forward,” he said.

In the meantime, La Porte realtor Robert Bortz as receiver has authority to market and line up developers for the site. 

Any development agreements negotiated by Bortz must be approved by the court.

Halfwassen Group and INland Logistics Port in Kingsbury will have no say over any development agreements brought to a judge for approval, said Timothy Abeska, an attorney representing La Porte County.

The existing landowners will have the option of supporting or challenging any development contract the court would authorize, Abeska said.

Bortz will also work on things like providing an easement to the existing companies at the industrial park for them to have access to the newly extended rail spur.

With a receiver now in the picture, the county is no longer moving toward foreclosing on the assets of the current landowners.

The county, under a development agreement struck late in 2013, can take over designated assets of the property owners to recover its $6 million investment if there is no aggressive effort to market the site.

The county has reserved the right, though, to move toward foreclosing at some point, if necessary, said Abeska.

“The county is awaiting the results of this case and the other dispute that is the subject of different litigation,” said Abeska.

INland Logistics Port includes representatives from Green Express, a new company that had proposed having refrigerated rail cars making round trips between Kingsbury and Florida with fresh produce and other farm products.

The products after being unloaded from trains would be housed in a cold storage facility until loaded on trucks for delivery to markets.

Friedman said Green Express has had difficulties securing the land for constructing a similar intermodal facility in Florida that would be needed to run the proposed CSX refrigerated rail car line.

The scope of the project is such that Indiana Farm Bureau and others high in the agriculture world have been in keeping in touch with what’s happening.

A thousand or more new jobs have been projected from the proposed intermodal facility along with great potential for farmers from the Midwest and the South to reach customers from as far away as overseas from barges that would leave Florida with produce delivered by trains.