SAVANNAH, GEORGIA GROWTH CONTINUES FOR 2019-2020. "I LOVE GEORGIA" STATED BY BILL STANKIEWICZ BILL STANKIEWICZ

Developers on Thursday announced a $500 million industrial park will be constructed on 1,150 acres on Ga. 21 and the CSX rail line in southern Effingham County, aimed at light industrial and manufacturing warehouse customers.

Stonemont Financial Group of Atlanta and Chesterfield LLC, developers in Jacksonville, said construction will start in December on two speculative buildings totaling 562,000 square feet and should be done in October 2019.

The park will be known as the Georgia International Trade Center (GITC). The Class A space will be 9.5 miles from the Georgia Ports Authority’s Garden City Terminal.

The land and first two spec buildings will be worth about $50 million, but when the entire park is built in five to 10 years, it will include 7.2 million square feet and be an investment of $400 million to $500 million, according to Stephen Ezelle, a partner with Cushman & Wakefield | Gilbert & Ezelle in Savannah.

Ezelle said Chesterfield is also constructing 1.7 million square feet in three buildings in the Savannah River International Trade Park – for JLA Home, Averitt Express and a spec building.

The new park in Effingham will provide direct access to I-95 and the I-16 corridors, as well as CSX rail. The campus will offer multiple built-to-suit options for tenants, ranging from 155,000 to 1.3 million square feet.

The spec warehouses will include a 407,000 square-foot facility with a 36-foot clear-height and a 155,000 square-foot rear-load industrial facility with a 32-foot clear-height.

Ezelle said talks are going on with four different users. He said Amazon would be the type of user that is being sought for the light industrial distribution warehouse space, but it is not one of the four companies in talks at this time. And the manufacturing warehouse space would be attractive to a user such as Georgia Transformers in Rincon.

About Chesterfield

Chesterfield specializes in the development of office and industrial projects throughout the United States. Headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida, Chesterfield has developed office and industrial real estate since 2006.

About Stonemont Financial Group

As a private real estate investment firm headquartered in Atlanta, Stonemont Financial Group specializes in investing across a broad spectrum of asset classes and geographies.

About Cushman & Wakefield | Gilbert & Ezelle

Cushman & Wakefield | Gilbert & Ezelle is an independently owned and operated member of the Cushman & Wakefield Alliance and a full-service Savannah commercial and industrial real estate firm.

The property has the proper PD-MU zoning. Ezelle said traffic studies were done when the land went through the development of regional impact process eight or nine years ago and it was determined then that Ga. 21 could handle the traffic.

Ezelle said there’s 0.6 percent of warehouse space available out of 67 million square feet in the market. More than 10 million square feet is under construction and will be done by the second quarter of 2019. Half of that already is leased, he said.

“There’s unprecedented demand and extremely low vacancy rates,” Ezelle said. “The time is right for this project.”

Will Gardner, CEO of Chesterfield, said, “We believe GITC is a real game-changer for the Savannah region and the State of Georgia. GITC is the only park that is on CSX rail, fully entitled with all utilities, less than 10 miles from GPA’s Garden City Terminal on a four-lane state route that also offers four building pads of over 1 million square feet each.”

Brandt Herndon, CEO of the Effingham County Industrial Development Authority, said GITC will not compete with the Savannah Gateway Industrial Hub, which is 2,600 undeveloped acres behind the Lowe’s in Rincon. The Gateway property is aimed more at manufacturing and GITC is aimed more at warehouse space, he said.

Herndon said he spoke at Rotary Thursday and got questions about more development adding more traffic headaches on Ga. 21. He said the Effingham Parkway will alleviate some of the pressure.

And he said the new industrial parks will bring new jobs so more people can live and work in Effingham instead of traveling to Chatham to work.  A groundbreaking is planned for December 2018, followed by the construction of the main spine road and utilities to serve the first two spec buildings.

Bill has 20+ years’ experience in Industrial Facility Operations, Business Development and Food Grade Distribution .

He has worked at Savannah Supply Chain as a consultant here in Savannah Georgia. On weekends Bill teaches as Adjunct Professor at Savannah Technical College the OS & OOG Freight Program for Pilot Escort and Fork Lift Safety Programs for certification and distribution operations. https://www.savannahtech.edu/

Bill was recipient of the PepsiCo-Frito-Lay Service and Quality Awards at the 13th Annual Contracting Manufacturing Meeting in Plano, Texas. The Service Award was presented to Shippers Warehouse of Georgia with the following criteria - 2010 vs. 2011 Volume in cases & pounds, Perfect Order Compliance & Average Detention Dollars per load. Shippers Warehouse of Georgia was presented the award due to their accomplishments during 2010—102% volume increase 2010 vs. 2011, 99.92% perfect order compliance,
$.053 average detention dollars per load and great customer service by all. The Quality Award was presented to Shippers Warehouse of Georgia with the following criteria—Improvement on consumer complaints from the previous year, foreign matter and AIB audit score. Shippers Warehouse of Georgia was presented the award due to their accomplishments during 2010—52% reduction on consumer complaints, no foreign matter and an average score of 925 on their AIB audits – both audits were unannounced.

In the past he has worked as Executive Vice President for American Packing and Crating. APC is a full service 3PL export packing and shipping company, now located in six major cities: Norfolk, VA, Savannah, GA, Ft. Lauderdale/Miami, FL, Dallas, Houston, TX, and Phoenix AZ. American Packing & Crating offers several shipping related services including crating, packaging, and containerization to ensure that a product is packaged to withstand the most difficult part of its journey. Our crating services include lagging of cable reels, cradles and saddles, and shipping skids with tie downs, as well as open frame, plywood, or reusable crates. We can also provide heavy duty wooden or modular crates and boxes. See: www.americanpackingandcrating.com .

Bill has worked as Senior Vice President for HRC Logistics that is a 3PL Logistics organization dealing with imports/exports, custom bonded projects, trans-loading, hazardous materials distribution and transportation, See: www.HWCLogistics.com .

My most recent experience has included working for Coastal Logistics Group as Vice President Sales and Operations. Responsible for CLG's Distribution Support Services (DSS). I instituted business metrics for all accounts, retrained all warehouse associates in GMP and proper utilization of equipment. Increased shipping accuracy in all facilities. Helped Identify improvement opportunities and manage initiatives inclusive of standardizing quantities, ASN integration, scan-based inventory, and managed inventory programs for customers. I lead the process integration of continuous improvement into the operating culture. Utilized measurement processes, best practices, innovation, technology, benchmarking and ongoing training to obtain a process driven, problem solving environment. Prior to CLG I worked as a Director of Operations for Barloworld Integrated Solutions division in Morrow Georgia handling the Tensar Corporation Account. Before my role at Barloworld I worked at Shippers Warehouse. www.barloworldhandling.com

Thank You again Georgia,

c: Information in post from: https://www.savannahnow.com/news/20181108/