LIVE OAK, Fla. — The desired rail spur at the Suwannee County catalyst site has caused some stress to Randy Harris since arriving here eight years ago.

But the long-awaited rail spur is now complete and with a few related projects on the horizon, the county administrator can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

“It can make you pull your hair out,” Harris said of the long-term project that required utilizing more than $4.7 million in grant funding to complete.

That hair-pulling process for Harris included bundling three different grants — Community Development Block Grant, Rural Infrastructure and Economic Development Trust Fund — in order to obtain enough funding to construct the track off the CSX mainline to the industrial park northwest of Live Oak.

“This typically doesn’t occur,” Harris said of the grant bundling, a process that led to him speaking at a Florida Department of Transportation symposium in October to share his success in completing the complicated task. “It’s very unique.

“It’s just not done. All the terms and conditions are different.

“Very, very complicated but in our case, absolutely necessary because we didn’t have the money. So I had to do it this way.”

That path not only netted the county the rail spur, but will also lead to a new rail crossing at the catalyst site on 175th Road, which will also be paved, in order to provide access to the western portion of the catalyst site. Another road, 50th Street, will also be paved with another rail crossing constructed across the county’s rail spur on 50th Street.

Total, the county’s portion of those projects is expected to be around $877,000.

The project itself was more than $5.5 million.

“It’s been a great deal for us overall because we haven’t used near as much local tax money as it would have cost otherwise,” Harris said.

The completion of the rail spur will be a great deal for the catalyst site as well. Part of the original plan for the industrial park, Klausner Lumber is planning to expand its facility now that there is rail access.

According to the county’s CDBG application, Klausner is expected to employ an additional 43 workers at the sawmill to bring its total workforce to 323 employees. Klausner also anticipates spending more than $15 million in expanding its facility with a second lumber yard as well as constructing its own track off Suwannee County’s rail spur.

“It’s been really important to (Klausner) from the beginning because they are major exporters of lumber product,” Harris said. “It either has to go out by truck or rail. The important thing with rail is they can get large shipments to the port and get it shipped out of here.

“It’s really important to them.”

The importance of the rail access was vital to Matco Industries, which purchased 100 acres of land just west of Klausner and the rail spur. A transloading and railroad logistics company, Matco opened a temporary location in Columbia County waiting for the rail spur to be constructed.

“That’s the very reason they wanted to come here,” Harris said. “It gave them a distribution point. It was critical that they have rail.

“They’ve been chomping at the bit to start things happening over here.”

In fact, Matco has already begun work on their own track off the spur and relocating its Columbia County location to the catalyst site, which is anticipated to cost around $400,000.