The machinery: a customs station and Foreign-Trade Zone 182

1988 — 2011

For most of its history Fort Wayne shipped out through other cities' paperwork; then it got its own: The federal record fixes the dates. By a final rule of the U.S. Customs Service effective 27 July 1988 (Treasury Decision 88-35), the newly approved Customs facility at Fort Wayne was designated a Customs station; because the station's service area had lain in both the Chicago and Cleveland districts, the district boundaries were redrawn so that the whole of it sat in the Cleveland District, under the supervision of the Indianapolis, Indiana, port of entry — and the station serviced a new user-fee airport established at Baer Field. Three years later the city acquired the trade instrument it still holds: Foreign-Trade Zone 182 was approved by the Foreign-Trade Zones Board on 23 December 1991 (Board Order 549), with the City of Fort Wayne as grantee, and expanded on 14 October 1997 (Board Order 928). The zone's anchor site was the airport itself — 443 acres at Fort Wayne International, 3801 Ferguson Road — joined by small warehouse sites on Wallace Street and Bremer Road and a site in Huntington. In February 2011 the city applied to reorganize the zone under the federal Alternative Site Framework, and that August the mayor's office announced the result: FTZ 182 would serve an eight-county region — Adams, Allen, DeKalb, Huntington, Noble, Wabash, Wells and Whitley — with the airport site as its "magnet" site, making it easier, in the city's own words, for local businesses to import and export products; the airport authority lists Foreign Trade Zone 182 among the field's standing assets to this day. The Airports section carries the field itself; what belongs to the export record is that after 1991 a Fort Wayne manufacturer could hold foreign merchandise, work it, and ship it on — or into the country — under its own city's zone, with customs supervision a mile away instead of a state away.

Sources:

1. U.S. Customs Service, Treasury Decision 88-35, Customs Bulletin and Decisions, Vol. 22, No. 27 (6 July 1988) — Fort Wayne designated a Customs station, placed in the Cleveland District under the Indianapolis port of entry, servicing the new user-fee airport at Baer Field.
2. Foreign-Trade Zones Board, Federal Register notice, "Foreign-Trade Zone 182 — Fort Wayne, IN, Application for Reorganization Under Alternative Site Framework," Vol. 76, No. 37 (24 Feb 2011) — approval 23 Dec 1991 (Board Order 549), expansion 14 Oct 1997 (Board Order 928), the four sites and the eight-county proposed service area.
3. City of Fort Wayne announcement, "City announces expansion of Foreign Trade Zone #182" (29 Aug 2011) — the eight-county zone and the 1991 grantee date.
4. Fort Wayne Airport Authority, Properties & Development — "Foreign Trade Zone 182" listed among Fort Wayne International's current assets.