By Neil Johnson njohnson@gazettextra.com February, 14 2022

 

JANESVILLE

A local trucking and logistics operator that hauls cheeses and other refrigerated foods wants to grow his operation in a property just off the Interstate 90/39—Highway 26 interchange on the city’s north side.

Bob Whalen, who runs ForZack Trucking and ForZack Logistics in Janesville, said he is planning a 40-foot-by-45-foot cross-docking building on a vacant parcel at the south end of Fulton Street off Milton Avenue that will allow truck-to-truck transfers of refrigerated foods his company hauls on contract throughout the Midwest.
 
Whalen said he eventually wants to build a 100,000-square-foot cold storage facility he said will likely be chilled warehouse space for cheese and other food items.

While his long-term plans for large-format cold storage are “still preliminary,” the Clinton native said, his trucking and logistics operations, which he first launched in 1994, continue to grow. Whalen said he now has 25 employees who have worked out of space on Janesville’s south side.

Monday night, the Janesville city council referred the project to the plan commission and set a public hearing for Feb. 28. Whalen is asking the city to OK a zoning change for the parcel, farmland that sits along the north side of I-90/39, just west of a Cracker Barrel restaurant and a Motel 6.

The project, according to a city memo, would require the city to run an extension of Fulton Street west alongside the property and a cul-de-sac that would allow semitrailer trucks to turn around.
Whalen intends to move his trucking and logistics offices into an existing building at Whitney Street adjacent to the parcel he plans to transform into a terminal. The overall plan, along with a zoning change, would require the city’s plan commission to approve a conditional-use permit.
 
In an interview with The Gazette, Whalen said he and city officials have talked over his plans and that he is still feeling out city officials on his ultimate goal, the larger cold-storage facility.

“We’re still trying to get the tentative vibe from the city, so to speak—their feelings on it—if they’re going to be OK with that. The larger project is going to be more for rent, mostly by existing customers of ours,” Whalen said.

Whalen said he deals with a large volume of Wisconsin cheese makers and has a growing base of customers for whom he transfers orders of specialty charcuterie meats between the Chicago area and the East Coast.

The main street that trucks would use to enter Whalen’s company’s proposed terminal, Kettering Street, is an intersection that handles cross-traffic at a new diverging diamond interchange the state completed last year to better handle the thousands of vehicles a day that come on and off the I-90/39 at Milton Avenue.

The spot Whalen is eyeing to turn into a trucking terminal is in an area that is mainly light industrial, but it is also within shouting distance of two hotels and a restaurant.

Whalen said city planning staff that he has spoken with have expressed concerns about the volume of traffic that might come and go from the area if it became a trucking hub. A previous trucking hub once operated nearby, but that one was much busier than Whalen said his initial cross-dock facility would be—at least until he added his desired large cold-storage facility.

“Once we get the storage up and running ... then the volume is going to increase,” he said.

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