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Jack Ellenberg of the South Carolina Ports Authority spoke to the Dillon Lions Club on Thursday, February 23, at the monthly meeting held at Twin Lakes County Club.
Brian Singletary and manager of the new Inland Port Dillon Michael Elmore of Georgetown was also present.
The members of the Dillon Lions Club and guests were enlightened as to the magnitude of the Inland Port Dillon and what’s in the future for Dillon County and the Eastern United States.
Ellenberg referred to the Inland Port Greer in his opening remarks. He stated that Greer has been operational for 3 and 1/2 years.
In December, 2015, “Project Pedro” came into existence.
For the first 6 months, former Dillon County County Administrator Clay Young for the first person Ellenberg met.
“Clay is the reason we’re here!,” said Ellenberg.
Ellenberg happily exclaimed “We’re ready to begin construction.”“The South Carolina Port Authority has made made investments and will continue to do so. We are the East Coast entity. South Carolina has the fastest growing port in the United States!”
From 2011-2016 the South Carolina Port has enjoyed a 45% growth. The South Carolina Port grew faster than the other 9 top ports in the United States.
Since 2011 the Port of Charleston has seen Intermodal volume up 166%.
Greer is a success, and Dillon will be a success.
There has been 10 billion dollars in investments in new industries in South Carolina because of the Port of Charleston such as BMW whose all products come thru the Port of Charleston.
Others such as Bridgestone, Cold Storage, and most recently a 1.5 million-square foot Dollar Tree Distribution Center located in Cowpens, South Carolina.
January, 2017 was the largest volume month in the history for the Port of Charleston.
We have 2 new cranes, 155 feet above the deck, to accommodate the new ships arriving in our ports.
The State of South Carolina is investing 2.15 billion dollars in infrastructure.
The Inland Port Dillon will receive $40 million.
The Port of Charleston is the deepest port on the United States Eastern Coast contrary to the comments about Savannah having the deepest port.
Our job is to keep freight moving fast.
The Inland Port Greer was built in 2013 to accommodate BMW. Greer went into construction in March and went live in October. The port is 2.5 miles from the BMW operation.
We must move containers fast.
The Southeast is the fastest growing population n the nation. The Southeast leads the nation in exports.
The Greer Port is having a 10-minute turn-time from trucks in the gate to trucks out of the gate.
The State of South Carolina will enlarge the Inland Port Greer.
The Greer Port moved 42,000 containers in the first year of operation. The Greer Port moved 106,000 containers last year!
The Greer Port broke even in 18 months. We needed 45,000 containers in one year to break even.
There are 47 acres of concrete that is 16 inches thick in the Greer Port.
We’re ready to go with the Inland Port Dillon!
We already have industries such as Perdue, Harbor Freight, and Wyman-Gordon that are already customers for the Inland Port Dillon.
Dillon has 2 states to capitalize from and especially Charlotte and the Raleigh-Durham area.
Rail works and is more economical than trucks.
We are making progress. We are already at 30% design today. In 2 weeks we expect designs to prepare us to get started.
We have 2.6 million dollars for rail tracks, 4.4 million dollars for rigs and equipment, and 10.9 million for paving and concrete.
We have been very busy at this facility. We’re working with Marlboro Electric, Marlboro Development, NESA, and Dillon county to get new industry to invest in Dillon, South Carolina.
We are ready!
