ATLANTA- Many American ports are implementing massive infrastructure and modernization plans in order to compete for market share with other containerized ports. This competition has gotten more intense as 2014, the date when the widening of the Panama Canal will be finished, approaches.

In the Southeast, Savannah, with a population of just over 132,000, boasts the fourth busiest container port in the US. According to a summer 2010 Jones Lang LaSalle report “On Point for the United States: Port, Airport and Global Infrastructure Outlook,” Savannah scored 86.3 out of 100 points, the highest of all the Southeast ports.

The scores were based on eight metrics, including the number TEUs (20-foot-long cargo containers) handled by the port per year, industrial real estate vacancies within a 15-mile radius, infrastructure investment, labor costs and land values. Savannah led all other ports in the southeast, in spite of high vacancies in the industrial market, because of the high volume of TEUs coming through port, among other factors, says Los Angeles-based John Carver, head of Jones Lang LaSalle's global port practice.

The widening of the Panama Canal will benefit all ports in the Southeast, but especially Jacksonville and Savannah, says Carver. These ports will be alternatives to Los Angeles/Long Beach, which used to have 50% market share of goods coming from Asia, he says. The new all-water routes will be more cost effective than bringing in goods from Asia through the West Coast and putting them on trains for the journey east.

Some ports have deepened their channels and made other infrastructure improvements in anticipation of the Panama Canal being widened, says Carver. Savannah, Norfolk, the new port in Mobile, AL and Port Manatee in Tampa have all made infrastructure improvements, he says.

In Savannah, at the Garden City Terminal, the Georgia Port Authority expects to invest $1.2 billion over 10 years in expansion projects to accommodate the projected growth in global trade. Currently, it is in the process of deepening the channel in the Savannah River from 42 to 48 feet.

The port, which in 2009 handled close to 2.4 million TEUs, much more than Charleston, Jacksonville or Miami, has worked hard to establish itself as a port of call for Chinese carriers, says Carver. Officials there have sold their location, based, not only on the deep water channel and infrastructure improvements, but the port’s  access to the Norfolk Southern and CSX Railroads and the population centers along  the East Coast in addition to the amount of developable land around the port.

A more than 5,000-acre industrial, commercial and residential development in Hardeeville, SC, just east of the Savannah River on US 17, is being developed by the Dallas-based Stratford Co. It will be called Riverport.

According to a June 14, 2010 article in the (Hilton Head) Island Packet, Stratford is marketing the 340-acre first phase of the Riverport project. It could include as many as 3.5 million square feet of warehousing and distribution space.

Savannah’s industrial real estate vacancy rate is 17.6%. “A lot of investment has gone into Savannah over the last five or six years, which was not timed right for the global downturn,” says Carver. Although the Savannah industrial real estate market has one of the higher vacancies of US port cities, the market also has had double digit growth in port traffic, says Carver. “Lots of people feel that industrial real estate owners will be able fill up space in Savannah, because the port has grown so fast,” he says.