In the wake of its busiest month yet for containerized trade, the Georgia Ports Authority (GPA) has called on private interests to join and expand the market for the state.
The data shows that GPA handled 437,750 twenty-foot equivalent container units (TEUs) at the Port of Savannah throughout August — a record-setting figure. That is a volume growth of 62,000 TEUs, or 16.5 percent, compared to the same timeframe in 2018. They handled eight more ships than their usual 37 weekly vessel calls and oversaw increased business leading to increasing private investment.
“We’re seeing an early and strong start to peak season at the Port of Savannah,” GPA Executive Director Griff Lynch said. “In addition to expanding trade on our regular weekly services, shipping lines are adding calls by sweeper ships to meet rising demand.”
Alongside that growth, Lynch also noted that the industrial vacancy rate remains extremely low — just 1.42 percent for structures with 100,000 square feet or more. This has prompted GPA Chairman Will McKnight to call for private developers to build up the potential market.
“Within a 30-mile radius of the Port of Savannah, there are more than 20,000 acres of industrial park space ready for development,” McKnight said.
The GPA has already added 10.7 million square feet of industrial space across its Savannah market this year, leading to a total of 67.7 million square feet. Much of that space is already occupied. Additionally, it’s commissioning four new Neo-Panamax ship-to-shore cranes this year to supplement its Garden City fleet, acquiring six additional such cranes by March 2020, increasing Savannah’s rubber-tired gantry (RTG) crane fleet by 20 next year, and building further RTGs to add additional capacity over the coming months.