The biggest issue facing JaxPort’s role in warehousing and logistics in Jacksonville is managing the current economic uncertainty surrounding shifting global trade flows while positioning the region for long-term growth.
Jacksonville’s growing connections to emerging trade lanes — particularly in Southeast and South Asia — are enhancing port activity, warehousing and logistics.
The same warehouse and industrial facilities that handle imports from legacy markets can just as easily handle goods from emerging markets or support increasing U.S. exports, including manufacturing activity taking place here in Northeast Florida, or on the island of Puerto Rico, Jacksonville’s largest trading partner.
There is an important and symbiotic relationship between a port and its surrounding industrial space.
Many containers that move through JaxPort need space: for distribution, storage, processing or value-added services. Without available industrial real estate, the port’s growth potential is limited — and without a strong port, demand for that warehouse space diminishes.
Fortunately, Jacksonville has unique strategic advantages. As the largest city by area in the continental United States, we still have room to grow — unlike more land-constrained markets.
Located in the nation’s third-largest and fastest-growing state, Jacksonville serves a large and expanding consumer base, creating demand that reaches far beyond the Northeast Florida region.
Our robust transportation infrastructure — including Interstates 10, 95 and 295, three railroads, more than 150 local trucking providers, and JaxPort itself, now the 10th-largest U.S. container port — makes this region a logistics hub.
We also have what our major competitors sometimes lack: a large, available workforce to support warehousing, logistics and manufacturing growth.
While the near-term landscape for large-scale industrial or commercial development initiatives may feel uncertain, Jacksonville is positioned to turn these shifting global trade dynamics into long-term opportunity.
Together, with our partners in the private sector, we will continue to build the infrastructure and relationships to seize it.
JaxPort is Florida’s largest container port with three marine cargo terminals along the St. Johns River.