Navigating through inclement weather and wetland mitigations, two Illinois-based development groups delivered a vital asset for class 1 freight railroad operator Norfolk Southern.
Timber Hill Group and Champion Realty Advisor completed a 21.3-acre container and trailer yard that has been leased out to Norfolk Southern for five years. Contractor ARCO Design/Build worked on the project as well.
The project is part of Timber Hill’s focus on developing industrial outdoor storage in Jacksonville, its co-founder and chief operating officer told the Business Journal.
The site offers many amenities for Norfolk Southern and carriers that it works with.
Less than a mile away from the Norfolk Southern rail yard, the lot at 6505 Old Kings Road eases access to freight by eliminating delays truckers might face in the rail yard.
“You can picture this is like (an) express checkout lane,” Timber Hill Co-Founder and COO Ryan Battistoni. “Instead of customers having to come into the rail yard … you have to look out for spotters and cranes and trains, this is a convenient location where customers can come into a more controlled environment, safer environment and pick up their pick up their loads and move on right and never actually have to access the intermodal itself.”
The property is a unique site in Jacksonville for the developers as it is their only facility leased out to a rail carrier.
For Norfolk Southern, the extra 21 acres acts as “a good pressure-release valve” for busy days.
“… the rail operators also are moving as fast as they can, and so I think NS has found a way to really offer a great amenity and service to their clients, which is the trucking community,” Battistoni said. “… we’ll have your equipment ready and waiting for you, as opposed to come, sit in line while the train unloads containers, one at a time.”
And the reduced wait for cargo is vital for truckers’ earnings.
“I think one of the biggest complaints you get from the truck driving community is oftentimes the rail carriers and the truckers are at odds with one another, right,” Battistoni said. “The truckers have electronic log databases that now monitor their hours of service and their hours of operation and so sitting idle, waiting for a container or a lift from a crane off a train eats into their ability to be efficient and profitable.”
The site is also near the four-way interchange at Interstate 295 and close to the CSX intermodal terminal.
Numerous carriers, logistics companies and large distribution facilities are in the area, such as Amazon, FedEx, UPS and Home Depot.
But even with the ideal location, the developers faced challenges, Battistoni said.
The delays, however, were good for learning about Florida’s environmental review process and for finding an eventual tenant for the site.
“One of the biggest challenges we ran into with our site was you had low land and kind of low quality wetland on the site, and so you can go through a mitigation process with that, where you purchase credits from banks and with all of the robust development that Jacksonville has been seeing, that their wetland banks have been basically tapped out,” Battistoni said. “And so that put us into a long holding period of waiting for credits to open up again, which definitely kind of delayed our progress. But inevitably, that delay gave us the runway to market the land to the tenants.”
Battistoni said Timber Hill have continued interest in Jacksonville and more confidence after completing this project.
“Jacksonville is a great, great municipality to work with, and we want to continue to do so. But you know now having gone full circle on a project. I think we’re even better prepared for the next one in terms of underwriting, what expectations are, what timing looks like,” Battistoni said.
