Big container cargo facility set for port

A.R. Savage will use the Tampa site as a distribution center, which could lure more of the lucrative business.

By JEFF HARRINGTON

© St. Petersburg Times, published May 4, 2000

The missing spark in the $10-billion-a-year economic engine known as the Port of Tampa may soon be ignited.

A.R. Savage & Son Inc., the largest independent shipping agent in Tampa, breaks ground today on a $3-million facility where container cargo that has been shipped in from around the world can be loaded on trucks and dispatched to locations throughout the Southeast. It will be the largest facility of its kind in central Florida and all along Florida's west coast.

Using Savannah, Ga., as a primary port, Savage contracts with trucks rolling from Orlando to Tampa to Jacksonville. It trucks VCRs arriving from the Far East to Circuit City stores, Chinese stuffed dolls to Walt Disney World and baby shrimp from Thailand to Chinese restaurants.

Savage's new 17-acre site in Hookers Point, leased from the Port of Tampa, will replace the company's much smaller operation scattered across eight acres in three locations in the port. The new center will include 12,000 square feet of office space; 20,000 square feet of warehouse space, expandable to 80,000 square feet; and truck access to a railroad line.

Combined with the port's recently opened facility for unloading container cargo from vessels, it could deliver on the longstanding goal to make Tampa a container cargo destination. Container cargo refers to objects shipped in large standardized crates -- such as appliances, food and cars -- as opposed to bulk cargo such as petroleum, grain and phosphates.

Container cargo often has been called the third leg of a stool for the port, combined with bulk cargo and cruise lines.

Tampa is the state's largest port for bulk cargo largely because of a booming phosphate shipping operation. And its cruise business has surged beyond expectations primarily because of a buildup by Carnival Cruise Lines.

The Port of Tampa missed the boat on container cargo, however, as other ports in the state and around the country concentrated on building the cranes and cargo yards needed to lure the lucrative business.

Tampa "got into a situation of playing catch-up and this will go a long way toward helping them attain that," said Arthur Savage, a third-generation executive leading the family-owned shipping agency's expansion.

Port director George Williamson called the Savage development a good first step toward becoming a major container cargo player, but he is keeping expectations in check.

"We only do 5,000 or 6,000 containers now so we have a long way to go," he said.

Williamson hopes international shippers decide to route ships to Tampa when they see Savage using the Tampa port to consolidate cargo that has been sent to other ports throughout the Southeast.

After more than a decade of discussion, the state Department of Transportation took over Savage's previous property by eminent domain last fall to clear way for an $18-million project realigning traffic coming off the 22nd Street Causeway.

Since then, Savage has been operating out of its headquarters under a short-term lease with the DOT. The company has until May 15 to relocate, but is negotiating to extend the deadline until 2001 to finish its new quarters.

A.R. Savage, which employs 25 and contracts with another 40 truck drivers, began as an agent helping shippers coming into Tampa. Over the years, it expanded into ocean freight forwarding, stevedoring and container handling.

The private firm would not discuss revenues or growth projections. But Arthur Savage said his company has posted its most explosive growth since branching into the trucking, or intermodal, side of handling shippers' needs at port in late 1995.

Trucking would have grown even faster, Savage said, if not for uncertainty over the 22nd Street project. "We've had to turn away business," he said.

Founded in 1945, A.R. Savage has deep ties to Tampa's maritime industry. Its founder, Arthur Russell Savage, was a former port commander for the Army Transportation Corps. Shirley Savage Knight, Savage's daughter-in-law and president of the company in the 1980s, is the great-granddaughter of Capt. James McKay, a leader in Tampa Bay shipping in the early 19th century.

Coincidentally, A.R. Savage's new location moves it closer to McKay Bay, named after the maritime pioneer.

© St. Petersburg Times. All rights reserved.