In Macon County, Illinois, one of the most recent and high profile economic development strategies involves the creation of the Midwest Inland Port (MIP), an inland port and intermodal facility. A privately owned public initiative, MIP is an infrastructure-strategy package. Part of the infrastructure includes an intermodal ramp, which is privately owned by ADM, a multinational agricultural processor. The intermodal ramp was funded, in part, by a grant from the state of Illinois. However, neither the grant application nor agreement required an impact assessment of the facility. I argue that a unique confluence of place-based factors facilitated the creation of the MIP and that a preliminary impact assessment should have been included as part of the grant application and agreement, especially in light of the high expectations for the facility. I propose a potential impact assessment methodology that considers transportation and economic impacts at the state, region, and county scales. I apply this methodology to MIP as an illustrative example. Though it is realistically too soon to determine the measurable impact of MIP, I show a means of measuring the potential impact on rail shipments and on local residents. This research enumerates a methodology that examines multi-scale impacts of transportation projects; it explains how a confluence of factors aligned to create a hybrid economic development-infrastructure model; and finally, it raises the possibility of utilizing large transportation infrastructure projects as a means of understanding industrial relations in Illinois.