Cold storage project to create 50 jobs

TAMPA — Port Tampa Bay and Port Logistics Tampa Bay I Inc., a developer, plan to start construction of a 130,000-square-foot cold storage food facility at the port early next year.

When it opens in November 2016, the $19.1 million facility will employ 50 full-time employees and up to 200 part-time, according to George Livingston, a Central Florida industrial developer and principal in Port Logistics Tampa Bay I.

The Tampa Port Authority Board recently approved a 27-year lease for Port Logistics Tampa Bay I for the 13.7-acre site on Hookers Point at Port Tampa Bay. It also hired Atlanta-based Batson-Cook Co. as contract manager for the project.

Port Logistics Tampa Bay I will be responsible for the interior improvements and all cold supply chain operations. The facility will receive, label, package and distribute temperature-controlled food products from foreign ports. Products will include perishable goods, fruits, vegetables, pharmaceuticals and other products requiring refrigeration.

The building will include office space for truckers and regulators, such as U.S. Department of Agriculture and customs officials, and 15 temperature-controlled doors for truck shipments.

“We expect to operate almost 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” Livingston says in a press release. “In our first year of operation we expect to accommodate 100 vessels with 400,000 pallets, along with 70 to 80 trucks per day entering and leaving the facility.”