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Chiquita terminates lease at Port Everglades
Fresh produce giant Chiquita Fresh America LLC plans to terminate its lease at Port Everglades in Florida, but it will use another terminal there for shipping.
Chiquita has leased the space since moving its receiving operations from the Port of Miami in 2003.
Chiquita, which had signed a deal at Port Everglades with Mediterranean Shipping Co. in 2014 to provide cargo service for bananas, plans to move out its 13.1 acres and 14,097 square feet of offices, along with 28,352 square feet of warehouse space.
The termination — the lease was due to expire Sept. 30, 2018 — would allow Chiquita to keep 6.59 acres of land under a short-term lease, but not the buildings. Chiquita is currently in a "phased" process of moving its on-port offices to its North American headquarters at the Design Center of the Americas, south of the port in Dania Beach, port officials said.
“The termination agreement will allow Chiquita to base their shipments out of Mediterranean Shipping Co.’s terminal at Port Everglades, which gives the port additional opportunities to utilize Chiquita’s vacated land and buildings for other users,” Jim Plyburn, director of Port Everglades Business Development, said in a prepared statement.
The Broward County Commission scheduled a vote Jan. 24 to terminate the lease for most of the facilities Chiquita has with Port Everglades, which is a department of the county, port officials said.
The move will not affect Chiquita’s South Florida headquarters at the Design Center of the Americas in Dania Beach, Fla., nor its warehouse lease at the port for banana ripening, officials said.
The move comes a little more than two years after the Brazil-based Cutrale-Safra Group acquired Chiquita for about $1.3 billion.
This story originally appeared on ThePacker.com.
