Color the Northern Plains Commerce Centre brown, as in the color of the trucks and uniforms of the nation's top package mover, United Parcel Service.

The Bismarck City Commission at its Tuesday meeting chose UPS-SCS (SCS referring to a UPS division that designs shipping systems) as the NPCC's logistics consultant. Last week an NPCC committee heard proposals from UPS and TranSystems, the nation's second largest package shipper, on why they should be chosen logistics consultant for the project. The review committee unanimously recommended UPS for the job.

City Administrator Bill Wocken, who sat on the review committee, delivered the recommendation to the commission. Wocken says the review committee preferred the approach UPS took, starting with commodities the NPCC can expect to see shipped and engineering the facility from that information.

"TranSystems took more of a systematic approach, looking at how the facility should be engineered and then concentrating on what commodities could be handled. Both approaches lead to the same end product, but the committee preferred UPS," Wocken says.

The commission also selected the project engineer, and with Kadrmas, Lee & Jackson, PC, the only bidder, the company received the unanimous support of the review committee. KLJ's proposal included using TranSystems for designing and engineering of NPCC. "TranSystems can build these type of facilities as well as figure them out," Wocken added. "KLJ has been working with TranSystems in developing the idea of the transloading facility and is comfortable working with them so that's why they including the shipping giant in their proposal."

Having selected its candidates, the city now will enter into negotiations for their services. Two local architects, Don Barsness and Don Jiran, were chosen to work on the project, and Braun Intertech was selected to do the soil sampling.

"These are the final pieces we need to have in place so we can begin ground breaking in the spring," Mayor John Warford said. "As soon as we work out the contracts, implementation starts."

The logistic consultant will look at the projects in two ways - macro and micro, according to Wocken.

"On the macro side, the consultant will structure a nationwide transportation plan. It will develop a master plan on how NPCC will move freight in and out," Wocken said.

"At the micro level, the consultant will look at how much rail the facility will need, how big of warehouses it will need, and what groups of employees will be needed along with job descriptions."

The reason the city chose the consultant and engineer at the same time is that they will have to work hand in hand to develop the project, Wocken said.

"The first thing people will notice is a lot of dirt work at the NPCC site just north of the airport, as the consultant and engineer determine what shape the facility will take."

In other action, the commission offered to extend Executive Air Taxi Corp.'s lease at the Bismarck airport for one year, following the current 30-year lease's expiration at the end of 2005.

Dennis Rohlfs, Executive Air president, had asked to enter into negotiations for a new lease, but Charlie Whitman, city attorney, advised the commission not to enter into negotiations since that could have an adverse impact on the city's position in a lawsuit being brought by Executive Air in which the city is a co-defendant. Executive Air is claiming damages due to discriminatory practices of the airport.

Rather than renegotiate the lease, Whitman recommended to extend the current lease and not enter negotiations until the case is resolved. He noted there is the possibility of an appeal depending the outcome of the case and it could go on for years. It appears the lawsuit will not be heard until early 2006.