Freight State

St. Joe CEO Britt Greene says his company is "looking at several opportunities to build inland ports."? [Photo: Florida Times-Union/Rick Wilson]

Now, however, as both the Port of Miami and Port of Jacksonville dig channels deep enough to handle the giant "post-Panamax" ships sailing through the expanded canal, Florida has a shot at landing a bigger share of import business from Asia and elsewhere.

The logistics centers are seen as essential to luring ocean carriers and major importers to the ports. The centers proposed by Plum Creek, St. Joe and Lykes/Duda also are designed to attract advanced manufacturing companies that could export goods like solar panels from the sites. "This strategy is about economic development and paying jobs," says Britt Greene, CEO of St. Joe Co.

Freight-rail improvements are another key. The reliance on trucks to move freight into Florida has put the state at a disadvantage as interstates have grown more congested, fuel costs have risen and pressures have mounted to reduce the carbon footprint of goods. Nationally, the focus on fuel efficiency and greening the supply chain has brought about what transportation analysts call a "rail renaissance," with carriers like CSX successfully marketing their fuel efficiency compared to trucks. Billionaire investor Warren Buffett is a big enough believer in rail’s future that he paid $34 billion last year for U.S. railroad giant Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp.

One catalyst for the private landowners’ plans is the 3-year-old deal between CSX and the state that had been stuck in limbo until the Legislature ratified it in December. The deal — equal parts freight rail and commuter package — creates a 61-mile commuter line and lets CSX move its Orlando intermodal and automotive operations to a big new logistics center the carrier is building in Winter Haven.

As that first domino falls, the landowners are pushing ahead with their own centers. The CSX deal "is the brilliant beginning of a process that could make Florida the freight distribution and advanced manufacturing hub of the Americas," says Mark B. Morton, vice president at Lykes Bros. and ILC project manager.

Lykes and Duda executives view the logistics center they envision for Glades County as the southern terminus of a string of centers down Florida’s backbone that will relieve truck congestion on the coasts and bring industry and jobs to poorer counties. The Moore Haven site, on the west side of Lake Okeechobee, straddles a railroad called the South-Central Florida Express. Owned by U.S. Sugar, the South Central meets up with CSX lines just to the north at Sebring. "A Lake City-Winter Haven-Moore Haven chain of intermodals gives an unprecedented opportunity to build supply chain infrastructure and the economy in the interior of Florida," says Morton.

Meanwhile, the Port of Palm Beach has voted to partner with Florida Crystals to create a logistics center at the company’s facility in Okeelanta. The company says its center will serve the "Fort Market" stretching from Fort Myers to Fort Lauderdale to Fort Pierce.

Daniel F. Martell, vice president of real estate for Florida Crystals, says "it’s time to take action and start building these facilities. Otherwise the Panamax ships go right past our shores to Savannah and Charleston instead of stopping here."

Collectively, the plans leave some big unanswered questions, not least of which is the environmental wisdom of putting manufacturing in the largely rural areas. "If you make all of this land industrial, you don’t have any environment left in Florida," says Drew Martin, chairman of the Sierra Club’s Everglades Committee.

Meanwhile, will major retailers, logistics companies and manufacturers be as eager to expand in the state as Morton, Powell, Greene and others believe? And could Florida end up with too many logistics centers? The state’s history is full of examples of regional competition that worked against its collective interest. Are the various centers "symbiotic," as Martell believes, or will they end up competing against each other, for example?

Another big question is who pays for all the improvements related to the centers. State Sen. Paula Dockery of Lakeland, who fought the state’s commuter rail package because she opposed public subsidies for the CSX freight rail improvements, says taxpayers have already paid for more than $1 billion on a "boondoggle."

To help answer the questions, the Florida Chamber of Commerce Foundation and the state Department of Transportation are working on a freight/logistics study due out later this year. For the first time, Florida will have a comprehensive reckoning of the goods moving in and out of the state via ships, planes, trains and trucks. Consultants are interviewing players from the international developers of ILCs to the Ikeas and Targets that populate them. They’ll ask questions like: Why do you bring cargo into Savannah and truck it all the way to Orlando?

"There is a huge opportunity for Florida if we do this right — there are new businesses and jobs at each and every link in the logistical supply chain," says Tony Carvajal, executive vice president of the Chamber Foundation.

"But we need the data because this is a very fluid market," he says. "Just because we decide we should be at the center of the global-trade universe doesn’t mean everyone else will agree with us."