Pop-up Container Yards Expand as Ports Remain Clogged

The Georgia Ports Authority, the state agency that runs the Port of Savannah—the fourth-busiest port in the US in 2021—has deployed six pop-up container yards in Georgia, Alabama and North Carolina to handle overflow from the clogged port.

According to a report this week in Hellenic Shipping News, which tracks global shipping, continued congestion problems at West Coast ports have forced logistics managers to shift their cargo to destinations on the East and Gulf coasts.

“Congestion measured in the number of waiting cargo vessels outside major ports is now worse on the East and Gulf coasts than on the West Coast, a major shift compared to the start of 2022,” said Mirko Woitzig, director of intelligent solutions at Everstream Analytics, in an interview with Shipping News.

Warehouses at the Port of Savannah are 99% full and pop-up storage facilities are being used to free up land capacity, the report said.

Thomas Wyville, the Port of Savannah’s regional manager, said at a NAIOP conference last week that loaded containers which used to move through the port in four or five days are now sitting at the port for as long as 10 days.

Savannah is being overwhelmed despite a decade-long expansion, including dredging and the installation of huge cranes, that permitted the port to receive the massive Post Panamax container vessels that come through the widened Panama Canal, ships that require channels at least 50 feet deep.

Earlier this year, California partnered with the online on-demand warehouse marketplace Chunker to create six new pop-up logistics hubs on state land to help ease the container congestion at backed up ports in the Golden State, GlobeSt.com reported.

Chunker, which bills itself as “the Airbnb of short-term, on-demand warehouse space” in the US, is leasing a total of 150 acres at three armories, two fairgrounds and a former prison site in California that combined can handle 20,000 containers.

According to state officials, Chunker’s one-year contract to equip and manage the pop-up container yards requires the company to pay California 5 percent of its profits from the new logistics hubs. The deal includes a second-year option.

Three of the pop-up logistics facilities service containers shipped to ports near San Francisco, while the other three are in the Los Angeles area. Sites include the Lancaster Armory, the National Guard Armory in Stockton, the San Joaquin County Fairgrounds, the A.V. Fair and Events Center, an armory in Palmdale and the shuttered site of the Deuel Vocational Institution in San Joaquin County.