FreezPak looks at building $116M refrigerated warehouse as cold storage heats up in Jacksonville (Courtesy of the Jacksonville Business Journal) — A logistics company active in the restaurant industry since the 1960s is looking to build a 272,000-square-foot cold storage facility in Jacksonville, part of a growing need for such facilities in the area.
FreezPak Logistics is asking for a $3 million property tax rebate from the city in exchange for the $116 million investment in the facility, which the company said would employ 80 people at an average wage of $56,000 per year.
The company is looking at other locations in the Southeast for the facility, which it is looking to build over the coming two years.
City Council would have to approve the incentive request, which the Office of Economic Development plans to file with the council on Aug. 3.
The plans for the warehouse come as the amount of refrigerated cargo moving through Jacksonville has surged over the past 18 months, spurring the construction of more cold storage facilities in the area.
In 2021, the Port of Jacksonville handled 91,464 containers of export refrigerated cargo, up 8% from the previous year.
In the first half of 2022, the port said it handled more refrigerated containers than any other South Atlantic port, at 37,723 containers, followed closely by Savannah.
That volume of cargo has intensified the need for storage space, prompting companies like Argentina-based restaurant supplier AxionLog to expand its presence in the area and other companies to start on new projects.
Axionlog CEO Alvaro Carretero told the Business Journal that the Jacksonville market in cold storage is so competitive, the company has tripled the size of the cold storage warehouse to include three freezers in its newest site.
“Now, there is a shortage of these kinds of facilities around the world, but the facilities that are close to the port…it’s strategic. We don’t want to have to be waiting for loading and unloading at the ports, or worrying about containers,” Carretero said. “We are offering to Jaxport and customers our facilities to optimize the reefer containers. Everybody is looking for that, for those kinds of containers, so at the end of the day we are helping the global supply chain to increase the speed of turnover for the containers.”
Axionlog is not the only company responding to the demand.
Earlier this month, Saxum Investment Co. filed plans with the St. Johns Water Management District to develop a 334,022-square-foot freezer warehouse in Imeson International Industrial Park, about half a mile northwest of the intersection between Zoo Parkway and Busch Drive North.
The need for refrigerated warehouse space comes at a time when the market is demanding more storage space overall.
“We are seeing a real hot spot here with commercial real estate. I think we’ve been caught with not enough warehouse space in general, and that includes refrigerated,” said Jaxport Director of Specialty Cargo Sales expert Rick Schiappacasse.
This increase in competition within the market spurs partially from a simple increase in demand as customers shift from fresh to frozen produce and foods, said Carretero, and that consumption of such products is rapidly increasing, too. Frozen food sales increased by 21% in 2020, nearly double the growth fresh produce saw.
Post-pandemic, consumers are choosing to eat at home rather than at restaurants, so they are buying more groceries to fill their freezers, as well as wanting more variety in frozen foods.
“You can buy all kinds of things from different parts of the world, and we, as consumers, are going to the store and having more and more variety. I think it’s very tempting to make more creative choices for your home,” Schiappacasse said. “The ability to just go to your supermarket and pick up these things and have that variety of either vegetables or, you know, meat products to do at home is just terrific. We’re bringing more of that to this market.”