Dive Brief:
- South American food giant Goya will break ground on a second warehouse in the Orlando, Florida, area in April or May, which will cost an estimated $42.9 million, according to the Orlando Business Journal (OBJ).
- The new facility will cover 330,000 square feet of a 20-acre plot, expected to open in the second quarter of 2020.
- A Goya Spokesperson told OBJ the company's existing 135,000-square-foot Orlando warehouse is "maxed out," and the new warehouse will have better rail access.
Dive Insight:
Since Goya is a privately-held company, we don't have as clear a window into its major cost drivers, but the report from OBJ indicates the cost of freight is a growing concern. The company will build the new warehouse near a rail siding in order to cut down on freight costs by moving more freight via rail, said the spokesperson.
Rail is an increasingly strong force in industrial real estate as intermodal traffic continues to grow. Florida has 5 or 6 intermodal hubs and neighboring Georgia has between 9 and 22 hubs, according to JLL Research.
Goya has more than 25 warehouses in the continental U.S., Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and Spain, according to Modern Materials Handling. The company also does much of its own distribution. It's largest facility is a 643,0000-square-foot warehouse in Jersey City, New Jersey.
The Jersey City location was built to replace two smaller locations that were "bursting at the seams," Executive Vice President Peter Unanue told Modern Materials Handling last year.
