The Florida Seaport Industry: A Future Economic Boon for our State?

This newsletter highlights the Port of Manatee (POM), which I just toured personally, and its role in buoying our local economy and bringing long term stability to our Sarasota real estate market.

Florida is home to 15 seaports! Seaports are created by the local municipalities to bring jobs and revenue to the community. While ports in Florida compete with one another, they also compete against ports throughout the US. A report commissioned at the end of 2014 indicates that there is a lot of available capacity in Florida’s ports.

Essentially ports are in the commercial leasing business. They lease land to companies that are in the distribution business, getting imports from the boat to consumers as quickly and as cost effectively as possible. They also aim to place exports on those same boats as they move on to their next port of call. The opportunity for exports or imports is fairly predetermined by geography. For example, the POM is about 75% import whereas the Port of New Orleans is about 75% export.

Things are going bananas with Port of Manatee Imports

The POM opened in 1970 and operates on 1100 acres. Revenue for fiscal 2015 was about $10M and they estimate it contributed $2.3B to the local economy. This includes the six immediate counties: Manatee, Sarasota, Pinellas, Hillsborough, Hardee, and Charlotte. There are more than 5,000 acres surrounding the port that has been rezoned and provide incentives for port- related businesses. Here are the activities that I found most intriguing:

• Del Monte is perhaps the most well-known brand operating at POM. It is their main point of entry for the Southeast. They bring in 75 ships per year and send out 125 trucks per week as far as Canada. There is more refrigerated space at POM than any other Gulf port. Last year they imported more than 46 million pineapples and over 1 BILLION bananas! That would be enough bananas to circle the globe more than 4.5 times.
• Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus call POM their winter home. They spend six weeks on 61 rail cars, with 100s of people from 27 countries calling the POM home during the winter.
• Now with the US and Cuba cultivating a relationship there are plans to launch a passenger ferry from the POM to Cuba. It would leave in the evening and arrive in Cuba the following morning.

How is Our Local Port Good for the Sarasota Real Estate Market?

Communities create ports to create jobs. I continue to maintain that diverse and better paying jobs is good for our economy, and therefore lends to the stability of our Sarasota property market. If you or someone you know is curious about the POM and how it contributes to the local economy, they provide free tours to the public from October through May. Check them out online at portmanatee.com.