North Carolina signs deal with CenterPoint
The North Carolina State Ports Authority said it has chosen CenterPoint Properties of Oak Brook, Ill., as a leading candidate to develop the proposed North Carolina International Terminal near the mouth of the Cape Fear River.
The port authority said it signed a predevelopment agreement during which “CenterPoint will provide the ports authority with answers needed to determine if the company will be the project’s long-term partner.”
CenterPoint is an industrial real estate company with 24 branded business parks. It owns and managing or controls more than 42 million square feet of property and 9,732 acres of land for future development. These include an intermodal center outside the Port of Savannah and an intermodal logistics park in Kansas City, Mo., developed with Kansas City Southern Railway.
CenterPoint is a subsidiary of CalEast Global Logistics LLC, an investor in logistics warehouse and related real estate whose members include the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) and LaSalle Investment Management.
In 2005, North Carolina purchased 600 acres of industrial property 19 miles downriver from its existing facilities in Wilmington on the Cape Fear River, just 3.5 miles from the Atlantic Coast and 14 miles from the sea buoy.
The authority hopes to build a new terminal that would be able to handle six to eight times as much cargo as in Wilmington — perhaps 3 million to 4 million TEUs.
The port said the new terminal would enable North Carolina to capitalize on the rapidly growing demands of international trade with the United States, which is projected to double between 2005 and 2020.