News
HILLWOODS' HEAVY METAL
March 5, 2010
| Hillwood VP Steve Boecking calls it a revolutionary concept in inland ports. Yet he thinks many companies still don’t know or understand it. “It” being the one-year-old heavy load container area within the Alliance Global Logistics Hub at AllianceTexas, which Trans-Trade began using it in March 2009. | |||
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Steve shows us where the heavy load container area is located adjacent to the BNSF intermodal facility. Newly established private roads (between the heavy-load container area and BNSF facility) allow heavier loads than public roads, which are subject to weight limits. Companies that put more product into one container can save about 20-30% on transportation costs. Inbound goods are then broken down into smaller, less heavy loads and placed into trucks or rail containers to be transported. Below, Westport 20 (the white building on the right) is where Trans-Trade occupies 293k SF, leaving another 270k SF available for a new tenant. | |||
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| (No, this isn’t from the Bisnow zeppelin; we borrowed this pic of the BNSF intermodal facility from Hillwood). Heavy-load practices like this are done routinely at seaports, but the Alliance facility may be the only one at an inland port in the US, Steve tells us. “Once it gets hot and rocking, we anticipate other companies lining up to do it. We’re in talks with several 3PL companies,” he adds. Another selling point: For the third consecutive year the Alliance Foreign-Trade Zone #196 ranks as the top General Purpose Foreign-Trade Zone in the US in the value of foreign goods admitted ($5.357 billion). | |||
