MOORE HAVEN, FL – Florida landowners Lykes Bros., Inc. and A. Duda & Sons, Inc. will implement a master-planned international logistics center on 4,700 acres in central southern Florida and have named the international commercial real estate firm of Cushman & Wakefield to begin marketing the facility. Planned for 30 million square feet of manufacturing and distribution facilities, the center will serve as an integrated logistics hub for trade within the Americas and with Asia and Western Europe.
“We chose Cushman & Wakefield to partner with us on this project because of their well-established expertise in both real estate and logistics, as well as their significant presence internationally,” said David J. Duda, president and CEO of A. Duda & Sons. “We believe in this project and see it being of tremendous value to the region and the state.”
Cushman & Wakefield is the industry leader in the integration of real estate and supply chain services. Having developed the practice in 1999, the company became the first in the industry to bring this integrated model to the market, and now possesses the leading expertise, experience, and talent within the discipline.
Cushman & Wakefield joins the project’s existing team which includes Institute St. Onge, a leading supply chain investment advisory, consulting and engineering company; Ware Malcomb, one of the world’s largest industrial master planning and architectural firms; and Rockefeller Group Foreign Trade Zone Services.
“While there are other logistics projects moving forward in Florida, we chose to work on this one because it has so much going for it,” said James Underhill, CEO-Americas for Cushman & Wakefield. “From the standpoint of supply chain cost, transportation, and network strategy, it is positioned to be a major facilitator of not only goods coming into the U.S. through Florida’s ports, but also as a key component in serving the rising demand for U.S. and Florida exports to Latin America and Asia.”
On the outskirts of Moore Haven, Fla., the 4,700-acre tract offers a number of significant locational advantages for logistics companies.
The center is situated to supply more than eight million consumers within the southwest, Heartland and southeast regions of Florida -- from Sarasota and Fort Pierce to the north, and Naples and Miami to the south -- a number that is expected to grow to 9.5 million by 2020. Planned to capture and enhance the growing trade between North America and South America, Western Europe and Asia, the center will include a combination of distribution centers, warehouses, manufacturing facilities, mixing centers, refrigeration facilities, transload and cross docks, and related logistics uses.
With its central location, the site is rail and road served to several ports, including the Port of Miami, Miami International Airport, Port Everglades, Port Manatee, Southwest Florida International Airport and the Port of Palm Beach. Rail service is provided by CSX and FEC via SCFE.
“Rail service to these major ports is a very important advantage,” said Jamie Kishel, director of operations-National Industrial Services for Cushman & Wakefield. “The site is also ideally located for trucking transportation, with easy access to major U.S. and Florida highways.
“The location has great access to competitive labor and distribution markets. Yet companies will be able to move goods in and out efficiently, bypassing Florida’s congested coastal residential and tourist areas,” said Kishel. “This center is going to play a critical role as an industrial hub and economic driver in Florida’s global supply chain infrastructure.”
The center will provide users with intermodal opportunities and diverse sustainable transportation and business solutions. The location will additionally benefit from the widening of the Panama Canal, which will open Florida to large Asian container ships.
“All of these factors create an outstanding opportunity for this strategic site to become a key component of Florida’s global supply chain infrastructure,” said Howell Ferguson, Chairman and CEO of Lykes Bros. “We are very pleased to have an international company like Cushman & Wakefield on board to promote this effort.”