Availability of land coupled with the Panama Canal project are pushing growth.

Communities and regions that are in proximity to ports along the Gulf Coast have an economic development advantage over their competitors in the quest for manufacturing expansion projects.

Many Gulf ports are forging ahead with expansion plans in the hopes of attracting more inbound and outbound cargo. They are also preparing for 2014, the anticipated date for the opening of the expanded Panama Canal. The $5.25 billion project will double the waterway’s capacity and allow more traffic and wider ships to transit, and Gulf ports expect to receive more business.

For example, Port Manatee signed a memorandum of understanding with the Panama Canal last year “to maximize the advantage of its proximity as the closest U.S. deepwater seaport” to the canal.




 

Port Manatee looks ahead

Port Manatee, located on Tampa Bay, sits in the middle of a market of 8 million consumers-about half of the population of the state of Florida-between Tampa, Orlando, and Fort Meyers. “We’re in a good locale for economic development,” says David McDonald, executive director of Port Manatee.

Port officials have one overriding objective: “We don’t want to get to the point where the port is boxed in and can no longer expand,” McDonald emphasizes.

The port has the space and the strategy to grow.

Manatee is one of the few ports on the Gulf Coast that has thousands of acres just outside its gates waiting to be developed for industrial international trade and commerce, according to McDonald. The port is developing a 3,500-acre parcel of property across the street into The Port Manatee Encouragement Zone. Companies that agree to build in the Encouragement Zone are offered tax incentives, and rapid response incentives for permitting and land-development issues.

International Salt and Mayo Fertilizers, two bulk commodity companies, have built facilities in the Encouragement Zone. Petroleum company Vecenergy is expected to start construction on a tank farm by early next year.

Strategically, the port has embarked on a $750 million master plan that focuses on the next 50 years. The focus of the plan, which was approved earlier this year by the Manatee County Port Authority and the state of Florida, includes attracting containerized shipping, berth and container terminal expansions, a comprehensive environmental mitigation strategy, and road and railroad enhancements.

The plan includes a container yard with four post-Panamax cranes to accommodate anticipated increases in container cargo as a result of the Panama Canal’s expansion.

“Our main goal is to provide opportunity for the future,” McDonald says.

Companies that import or export out of Manatee have easy access to both the Gulf of Mexico and South Atlantic Ocean. This allows the port to build trade routes with both coasts of South America, McDonald points out.

Companies don’t face congestions once cargo is on land, largely because of non-stop access to interstates 75 and 275, as well as a Class III railroad connecting to CSX rail lines.

The port is also working on new highway connections to both the Encouragement Zone and Interstate 75. “We don’t have any congestion today, but we’re looking to avoid any congestion in the next 10 to 20 years,” McDonald says.




 

Port of Houston undertakes aggressive expansion

Aggressiveness is a word to describe the Port of Houston Authority’s expansion efforts. The port authority has two container facilities, Barbours Cut and Bayport. Barbours Cut, the older of the two, is at full build-out and can comfortably handle 1.7 million TEUs per year

Bayport is being built in phases, as dictated by market demand. The port authority is adding 1,330 feet of berthing space to the current 2,000 feet and adding 50 acres of container yard to the current 110 acres.

There are six post-Panamax cranes at Bayport, and the port has three super-post-Panamax cranes on order. These upgrades will put Bayport at about 46 percent of build-out, says Ricky Kunz, vice president of origination for the Port of Houston Authority.

But that’s only the beginning for Bayport. Anticipating increased volume because of the Panama Canal project, the port is further expanding the facility. At build-out, Bayport will have a design capacity of 2.3 million TEUs. The channel depth has already been widened to 530 feet and deepened to 45 feet, which will allow the port to handle larger vessels, Kunz notes. Target date for completion of Bayport is 2018.

“We’re building Bayport as business demands, and because the business continues to demand, we continue to build out,” Kunz remarks. “Retailers are coming here because they want to be closer to their customer base.”

More than 150 public and private terminals line the port, including most major oil companies and many other companies that support the oil and gas industry.

According to a Martin Associates study, the port has a $118 billion annual economic impact on the state of Texas and directly or indirectly affects 785,000 jobs.




 

Alabama port plays large economic development role

When Hyundai Heavy Industries was investigating potential sites to build a plant that would manufacture heavy-duty transformers, the Alabama Port Authority provided critical transportation data to local economic development agencies.

The port of Mobile has a heavy-lift crane, which would be able to put the company’s transformers on specialized rail cars and transport them to the Port of Mobile for export.

It was one of the reasons why Hyundai Heavy Industries decided earlier this year to locate a 220,000-square-foot facility in Montgomery.

This is one of many examples of how the Port Authority works with state and local economic development agencies to attract manufacturing projects to the state of Alabama, says Jimmy Lyons, director and CEO of the Alabama State Port Authority.

“Transportation can be a swing factor, or at least an important component that you have to be able to solve in order to get an expansion project,” he points out.

Easy access to a port also gives Alabama a critical advantage over other states in the site-location competition. Auto manufacturer Hyundai built its first U.S. plant in Alabama, rather than in Kentucky, in part because of the proximity (about two hours) to the Port of Mobile.

“The company moves a lot of automobile parts by container through [Mobile],” Lyons says. “It is one of our major customers.”

The Port of Mobile is upgrading its facilities in an attempt to make it more cost-effective for companies to ship out from there rather than New Orleans or Savannah, Georgia. The biggest example of these upgrades, Lyons says, is the Mobile Container Terminal, which opened two years ago.

“The terminal has a broad impact, because it helps smaller companies that only ship a few containers a month and it helps companies that ship large quantities,” he notes.

The Port Authority is building an intermodal transfer container facility adjacent to an existing marine terminal. The facility, estimated to cost $75 million, will connect the terminal with up to five Class I railroads.




 

Wind energy components grow in Corpus Christi

For Port Corpus Christi, smaller is better.

“One advantage of being a smaller community (a population of about 370,000 people) is our highway system is not congested,” says John P. LaRue, executive director of Port Corpus Christi. “We have easy access to the interstate, and there is little congestion on rail or at the port.” The port markets the fact that a company can transport cargo from Corpus Christi to Los Angeles in about two days, with little or no congestion until reaching Southern California.

However, don’t misjudge Port Corpus Christi because it is not in a larger metropolitan region. The port is a primary shipping point for many energy-related industry sectors doing business in Texas, including oil and gas.

It has also developed during the past three years into one of leading ports in the country for handling wind energy components, including very large turbines that require special handling, LaRue says.

Blades imported from Brazil and Asia, and turbines and motors imported from Norway and Denmark come through Port Corpus Christi. The port is also beginning to see domestically manufactured turbines leaving for export markets.

Wind energy components move inland from Port Corpus Christi to as near as 15 miles and as far away as Colorado and the Midwest. Until about a year ago, components were moving by truck. But in the past year, the three railroads serving the port-Union Pacific, Burlington Northern Santa Fe, and Kansas City Southern-have installed the proper turning radiuses and brought in the necessary cars and equipment to transport the components.

Two years ago, the port completed a $55 million freight-rail road that connects to both the interstate and rail system, and there has also been a $15 million upgrade during the past three years in its staging areas.

Currently, the port is building a multi-use terminal in a new area that will have on-site rail. The terminal will allow Port Corpus Christi to expand the storage areas it uses for general cargo, LaRue says.




 

Port Freeport uses its advantage

Americans continue to enjoy their bananas, and Dole, Chiquita, and Turbana use Port Freeport, fifty miles from Houston, as their import base of operations, while people around the world sustain their desire for rice goods produced at the on-port facilities of American Rice Inc./Grupo SOS.

Meanwhile, export cargo volumes to the Tropics and South America are increasing, says A. J. Reixach Jr., executive director and CEO of Port Freeport.

Land has long been one of Port Freeport’s greatest advantages, with about 7,500 acres strategically located to the open Gulf waters available for future development, Reixach says.

Port Freeport will expand its operations and add to its cargo handling capabilities when it opens the first phase of its Velasco Terminal. The terminal will have a new 800-foot-long dock, currently under construction, and 20 acres of backlands. Eventually, the port will offer 2,400 feet of berthing space and more than 90 acres of supporting land.

On the rail side, Union Pacific Railroad is putting a new bridge in place over the Old Brazos River, eliminating present weight restrictions. Roadway developments are led by the launch of a design and engineering project to elevate a major intersection involving Texas Highway 36.

The port is designing a high-efficiency truck queuing area and continues to work in conjunction with federal and state officials to deepen and widen of the port channel.

“Port Freeport and its customers are looking to gain from enhanced multimodal connections,” Reixach says. wt



Ken Krizner is a freelancer writer based in Cleveland, Ohio, where he writes often on economic development and technology issues.