SAVANNAH, GA. — Duke Realty Corp. has acquired two industrial buildings totaling 657,600 square feet near the Port of Savannah from local developer Wrenn Blalock.
Located in Duke’s Port Logistics Center at Crossroads Business Park, Northpoint IV and Northpoint VII feature 432,600 square feet and 225,000 square feet, respectively. The buildings are fully leased to Ocean Link and Midwest Air Corp.
Sam O’Briant, Duke’s executive vice president for the Southeast who is based in Atlanta, says the recent acquisition takes the company to over 4.5 million square feet at Crossroads and 5.9 million square feet collectively in Savannah, and he only sees those figures growing.
“All of our tenants continue to grow their businesses and the real advantages that they enjoy is that they’re able to compete at the low end of the cost range,” says O’Briant. “Operating wise, the buildings are very efficient for their operations and they are very close to the port, which lowers their transportation costs.”
The Port of Savannah is the fourth most active port in the U.S. and the most active in the Southeast. With this growth, O’Briant says the main concern for distributors is efficiency and cost.
“When a ship comes in, the whole goal is to get the containers from the ship, unloaded, and ready to go inbound, and then rework the containers back to the ship,” says O’Briant. “So turn around efficiency is a big deal — the ability to handle the product and minimize shipping costs is key to the logistics business.”
Duke acquired its first Port of Savannah properties in 2005 and O’Briant says the company has their eye on a couple of other sites that are currently under development.
“Within a couple of years, I could easily see our 5.9 million-square-foot position growing to approximately 7 million square feet,” says O’Briant. “That’s in a 30 million-square-foot market, so we are clearly in the leadership position in Savannah.”