There are few things more frustrating to a manufacturer than knowing a critical shipment is 90 miles away, just sitting on an airplane.

For Wisconsin importers and exporters, that scenario has played out for years.

Right now, the vast majority of air cargo sent to southeastern Wisconsin is shipped in and out of Chicago O’Hare International Airport. When an aircraft lands at O’Hare, due to the complexity and congestion, it could take two to four days to get that freight to the customer in Wisconsin, according to Jim Best, a longtime air cargo executive in the Milwaukee area.

“I know that because I was a freight forwarder at one time, and I knew my degree of frustration and my clients’ frustration when their cargo would be just sitting in Chicago for a week,” Best said. “We’ve had to come to accept it.”

Developers are betting Milwaukee can offer an alternative.

On the southern edge of Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport, construction crews are enclosing the 337,000-square-foot South Cargo Logistics Hub, a project led by Dallas-based Crow Holdings and Mitchell International. The building’s walls are up, the roof is being installed, and developers say the facility remains on track to open in September.

The site itself is part of the former 440th Airlift Wing property, a 41-acre parcel at 300 E. College Ave. that reverted to Milwaukee County after the base closed in 2008. Developers spent more than five years securing federal, state and local approvals before construction began.

The premise behind the hub is that Milwaukee already has the runway capacity to handle the world’s largest cargo aircraft, but it has lacked the building, equipment and coordinated logistics operation to process them, making O’Hare the dominant cargo hub in the region.

“We’ve always been a stepchild to Chicago,” said Best, who is working with Crow and Mitchell International as a consultant for the project. “I have worked with many importers and exporters, and I know the impact this facility can have.”

The new facility is designed to accommodate up to five Boeing 747-400 freighters simultaneously. Each aircraft can carry the equivalent of roughly 11 fully loaded semi-trailers. Airport officials estimate the facility could generate more than $1.3 million annually in landing fees and more than $1 million in ground lease rents and related fees.

The building has the potential to quintuple the amount of cargo coming into Milwaukee every year, according to Jack Rabenn, vice president at Crow Holdings, “which is obviously a huge economic catalyst for the region,” he said.

Southeastern Wisconsin ranks first in the nation for concentration of manufacturing jobs, home to global importers and exporters such as GE HealthCare, Rockwell Automation and Krones. Many of the products made here – from medical imaging equipment to advanced automation systems – are high value and time sensitive. Some cannot be shipped by ocean because salt air can damage sensitive electronics, making air freight essential, according to Best.

Yet despite that concentration of importers and exporters, most local cargo continues to flow through Chicago.

At O’Hare, cargo planes compete with roughly 750 daily passenger flights, which typically receive priority for gates and taxiways. Taxi times can stretch to 45 minutes or more. By contrast, Milwaukee’s taxi times are often under five minutes, and its runways operate at roughly half of their hourly capacity.

The development team has spent the past several months meeting directly with major manufacturers, freight forwarders, trucking companies and airlines to gauge demand and build alignment. Between tours, calls and industry events, project leaders estimate they have presented the concept to roughly 500 stakeholders across the supply chain.

“It’s not like you go find one tenant for the building; you’re literally moving the supply chain,” Rabenn said. “You need the planes and the airlines willing to fly in with the goods, you need an operator willing to receive the goods, you need freight forwarders that are kind of the brokers of the goods.”

Beyond the building itself, the project includes additional infrastructure intended to make the hub more competitive, including a nearby fuel farm.

“The shippers themselves would prefer for (their cargo) to come through our building because their origination or final destination point is in Wisconsin for the most part,” Rabenn said. “But they might not necessarily have enough volume individually to push planes to come through on a continuous basis. But it’s an economies of scale situation, which is why it’s important for us to get as many shippers engaged as we can.”

Convincing the market to change long-established patterns may be the project’s biggest hurdle.

O’Hare is deeply embedded in global logistics networks and companies have invested heavily in operations there. As a result, routing shipments through Chicago is seen as the safe, familiar choice.

But in an era of tariffs, geopolitical tension and economic volatility, Rabenn and Best say schedule certainty and lower shipping costs can carry significant weight. Landing in Milwaukee would mean fewer “touch points,” shorter taxi times and reduced exposure to passenger-flight congestion, according to Rabenn. For some shipments with Chicago as the final destination, it may even be faster to fly into Milwaukee and truck south, Rabenn and Best argue.

There is also an environmental argument. Reduced taxi times and less congestion translate to lower fuel burn and fewer emissions per flight, according to Best, who believes that once airlines and freight operators see the facility operating at scale, momentum will build.

“If you build it, they will come,” Best said. “That’s how I see this project, because the challenge was always convincing people that it’s a sure thing. Well, now this thing is happening.”

If cargo volumes increase as projected, the airport’s surrounding industrial real estate submarket could see increased demand. At many major cargo hubs, some of the strongest-performing industrial real estate clusters are located near the airport, which Rabenn said could be seen at Mitchell over the coming years. Further, an expansion of international cargo service in Milwaukee could create white-collar jobs tied to freight brokerage, customs compliance, supply chain management and logistics operations, Rabenn argues.

For Best, who has worked in air cargo since 1976, the effort is both professional and personal.

“This industry has been so good for me and my family and others who I’ve helped introduce to this business,” he said. “I see this as a way for me to give back to an industry that’s been tremendously good to me.”