Julie McCombs
Jim Newsome, S.C. Ports Authority President and CEO, said expansion at the Greer Inland Port will be included in the next fiscal year budget.
Julie McCombs
Two more cranes are coming to Greer to help with the immense work load.
John Clayton
The Greer Inland Port processed 58,000 containers in its second year of operation. The plan was an average of 40,000 lifts per year.
Julie McCombs
When the Greer port expands, the infrastructure is in place and acreage carved out west toward Moore Street.
“I predict that we’ll have to add to that physical footprint in the next fiscal year,” Newsome said Wednesday after a SCPA meeting and announcement of details from an economic-impact study produced by the University of South Carolina’s Moore School of Business.
By the 2017 fiscal year, Newsome said he expects to have the capital budget for the Inland Port expansion. Currently, the Inland Port operates on about 38 acres. An initial expansion would grow the facility to 70 of the total site’s 100 acres.
“The South Carolina Inland Port is a huge success,” Newsome said. “We thought we’d be at 100,000 lifts (40,000 per year) in five years, and we’re basically at 90,000 lifts after two years. I’m really pleased.” Newsome said the Greer port processed 58,000 containers in its second year of operation.
While Newsome plans on an expansion within two years, he believes the $50 million facility can still grow before the physical plant is expanded.
“I think we could handle 120,000 containers pretty comfortably today,” he said. “I think we can handle expansion pretty quickly. We can grow pretty easily.”
Newsome said two more cranes are soon to be operational at the Inland Port, bringing to five total.
When the Inland Port does expand, it could employ as many as 20 new workers and potentially double its current capacity, but such an expansion would also mean more jobs throughout the region as manufacturing and distribution centers also grow.
The BMW-led automotive manufacturing industry in the Upstate is the bulk of the Inland Port’s business. Newsome said the recent addition of the Dollar Tree retail chain will open doors into new markets for the Greer port. Dollar Tree is opening what is reported to be the largest distribution center in the Upstate on 214 acres in Cowpens, and it will be served by the Inland Port.
“I’m grateful that Dollar Tree expanded here,” Newsome said. “I believe that it’s kind of showed a roadmap for big-box retail distribution here because that’s a very unique business. It’s going to be a 1.5 million square-foot facility, and it’s really a showcase for others who want to invest in this area.
“We’re within 500 miles of 180 million consumers, that’s the major attraction of this location,” Newsome said. We’re on the I-85 corridor, so you really couldn’t ask for very much more.”
The figures from the economic impact study, which was led by the Darla Moore School of Business Professor Joseph Von Nessen, support the need for future expansion of the Inland Port. A Jasper County port project, which is planned for around 2035 in association with the Georgia Ports Authority, is also in the works.
The study estimates the impact from all aspects of the SCPA to be at $53 billion.
About half of that number – 50.5 percent and around $28 billion – is concentrated in the Upstate and much of that around the automotive industry.
The study claims that about 15.3 percent of the Upstate’s economy derives from the SCPA, and that about 1 of every 8 jobs can be attributed to the SCPA.
“The most important thing, focusing on the Upstate region, is number one, over half of the total impact is concentrated in the Greenville-Spartanburg region,” Von Nessen said. “That was a surprise to us. We knew it was going to be concentrated, but not that concentrated.
“That’s very important because if we look at the last five years, the automotive cluster has been the primary driver of growth in this region … As we see the Inland Port continue to expand and do business, that’s only going to make it easier for that cluster to continue to expand. That’s very important for the future of this region as South Carolina becomes more of a global hotspot for advanced manufacturing.”
Here are other notes from Tuesday’s SCPA meeting:
Newsome praised the work of Norfolk Southern Railroad since the opening of the Inland Port.
“They’ve done well,” he said. “They started with one combined train from Atlanta to Charleston that went by Greer. As business grew, they split off the trains. The Atlanta train comes by here, and there’s a dedicated Greer-to-Charleston train.”
Norfolk Southern’s mettle was tested during the recent flooding of the South Carolina Midlands and Lowcountry that left several sections of track under water in those areas.
“They reacted particularly quickly to the flooding,” Newsome said. “They got service back in place within two-to-three days. They’ve responded quite well.”
Greer’s Inland Port was the first in South Carolina, but it may not be the last.
Newsome said he is looking at potential spots for another Inland Port, but would not disclose a“We’ve got some ideas in mind about where might be a good location, but I don’t want to disclose anything right now, it’d be premature to do that,” he said. “Obviously, if we do that, we’d have to have some land. Understand, and Inland Port works on two things – you’ve got to have cargo and you’ve got to have a railroad.”
From that aspect, Greer seemed to be an easy choice.
“I said, ‘show me 20,000 containers and overnight train service,’ and that’s what we did,” he said.