Buyers Flock to Jacksonville’s Scarce Industrial Waterfront
“When opportunities pop up, we usually have good activity in finding a buyer for them.”
JACKSONVILLE, FL—The Jacksonville Port Authority (JaxPort), Florida’s largest container port, hit record volumes in containers, vehicles and overall tonnage during its fiscal year ending last Sept. 30 Jacksonville’s tonnage has risen steadily over the past several years, putting increased demand on scarce industrial property along the city’s waterfront.
For that reason, “Industrial property is extremely hard to find on the water,” Guy Preston, with Colliers International Northeast Florida, tells GlobeSt.com. “When opportunities pop up, we usually have good activity in finding a buyer for them.”
That happened when Preston recently represented Norfolk Southern Corporation in the sale of a 39.5-acre industrial waterfront terminal parcel to Keystone Terminals. Keystone leases eight to 10 acres to various companies that bring in aggregate, rock, sand and mulch, according to Preston.
“They are at capacity and this was a great opportunity to pick up additional land,” he says. Crowley Maritime also recently hired Colliers to lease 35 acres of property that has access to the water through other Crowley property.
Preston says a $750 million project to deepen the port to allow for Post Panamax ships will create demand for more distribution space in the Jacksonville region. The shipping channel will be deepened from 40 to 47 feet by 2023.
The region currently has a 4 percent industrial vacancy rate.
“We are fortunate versus Savannah and Charleston in that we are well-rounded in all of our industrial property,” Preston says. “Anything you can think of we have. There’s no one dominant sector of distribution.”
JaxPort has three terminals, handling containers, cars and some break bulk. The port typically vies with the Port of Baltimore for the most import of cars to the U.S. A private terminal handles aggregate.