SELINSGROVE — By the end of the year, a local transportation organization should know whether it will have the funds to be the first business to unearth ground in the Pawling Station Business Park.

The Union/Snyder Transportation Alliance, which is based in Lewisburg, has been looking for a new location for more than three years, according to Administrator Cynthia Zerbe. The agency has outgrown the 1,200-square-foot facility in Lewisburg.

USTA officials are hopeful they will receive a highly competitive $3 million federal Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery Discretionary Grant, which would take care of 68 percent of the $4.2 million project. The building would contain 14,000 square feet, including two bays and a wash bay.

“We feel we’ve submitted a very good application,” Zerbe said. “We have other funding sources to help show that we have local support.”

The tricky part of applying for this grant, she and the Snyder County commissioners said Tuesday, is that land must be “shovel ready.” Pawling Station contains five shovel-ready lots on 48 acres.

“You can’t apply for this grant and then try to find a site,” Zerbe said.

Negotiations between the Union-Snyder Community Action Agency, which runs the USTA program, and SIDCO, which owns the property, have been ongoing, and a deal is contingent on the approval of the federal grant, the commissioners said.

“We are still negotiating with USTA,” confirmed Charlie Ross, president and chief executive officer of the Greater Susquehanna Valley Chamber of Commerce, which manages SIDCO. “We are still hopeful to get them as a tenant into Pawling Station Park.”

The project would not only help better support transportation services in Union and Snyder counties, “but being a tenant in the park puts in place the possibility of synergy with other types of businesses,” Ross said. “We desire to see any activity in the park, and I believe you’ll see more.”

USTA, established in 1979, provides approximately 93,000 trips a year in the 650-square-mile service area of Union and Snyder counties. An average of 380 to 400 trips are provided each day.

Pawling Station was established as a Keystone Opportunity Zone in the summer, meaning businesses are being offered a property-tax exemption for 10 years if they locate there.