Gov. Nikki Haley and Jim Newsome, S.C. Ports Authority CEO, made a quick trip to Greer for a walk-through of the Inland Port facilities.
Jim Fair
Gov. Nikki Haley and Jim Newsome, S.C. Ports Authority CEO, were accompanied by Michael Hoffman, Terminal Manager for the S.C. Inland Port, and Carlos Gittens, right, Supervising Engineer with Parsons Brinckerhof.
Jim Fair
Gov. Nikki Haley and port officials are dwarfed by the enormity of the 45-acre facility, cranes and equipment.
Jim Fair
A container arrived during Gov. Nikki Haley's visit to the S.C. Inland Port in Greer. Trucks enter John Dobson Road and travel into the port for the containers to be stacked.
Under cloudless blue skies with gusty winds swirling dirt at times, the backdrop couldn’t have been any more extraordinary. A Norfolk Southern train passing the port drowned out part of Haley’s 17-minute appearance. Idling cranes created a constant buzz. Trucks in construction and delivering containers were constantly in motion.
“Look at South Carolina now. It doesn’t get any more exciting than this,” said Haley. “It shows the companies that want to expand that we are helping them reduce their costs. It’s all about speed to market and speed to ports and how we get that done.”
Haley appeared with Jim Newsome, S.C. Ports Authority CEO, Michael Hoffman, Greer Inland Port Terminal Manager, and Carlos Gittens, Supervising Engineer with Parsons Brinckerhof.
The port has been receiving containers from trucks entering from Dobson Road. GSP Logistics Parkway is near complete but the connection to International Commerce Way is incomplete. The first rail delivery is scheduled later this week.
Interestingly, one of the first containers arriving at the Inland Port, via Charleston, was from a German auto parts company.
Haley commended the Port Authority bringing the port on line, and nearly on schedule despite a record summer of rain. “ I think it’s now all about selling (the port),” Haley said.
“It’s also telling new companies that are coming to South Carolina that not only are we taking care of them in the Low Country but we are actually looking at their overhead costs and taking care of them in the Upstate. This combines every part of the state.
“This is not something you see in every state. This is something we are committed to in South Carolina which is infrastructure, and if you have infrastructure you have business and if you have business you have jobs.”
Mayor Rick Danner, Vice President of Business Development at Greer State Bank, proved prophetic before Haley’s appearance describing. “We had visitors from Chattanooga that were looking for a city with proximity to interstates, had a regional airport and a manufacturer anchor. Greer had all these amenities. Greer is one of the few cities that hit that criteria,” Danner told guests at a Customer Forum breakfast hosted by the bank at the Cannon Centre.
BMW is the port’s anchor tenant with its $13.4 million, 400,000-square foot warehouse
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