The parent company of a longtime tenant of JaxPort plans to expand its footprint more than threefold under a lease approved Jan. 22 by the port authority board for acreage being vacated by Southeast Toyota at the Talleyrand Marine Terminal.
Enstructure, a terminal and logistics company with corporate offices in Massachusetts and New York, has agreed to a 30-year deal to lease and develop 79 acres of waterfront property at the port. Enstructure is the parent company of Seaonus Stevedoring, which operates on 35 acres adjacent to the site and has been a JaxPort tenant for 27 years.
A signing ceremony that included Mayor Donna Deegan and City Council President Ron Salem followed the board’s meeting. Deegan called the lease a win for the port and for job development in Jacksonville, particularly the area surrounding the port.
JaxPort CEO Eric Green said Enstructure plans to grow its Jacksonville workforce by 300 to 400 employees under the deal.
The lease is set to begin in late 2025 when Southeast Toyota relocates to the port’s Blount Island Marine Terminal.
Enstructure plans to use the facility to move multiple cargo types, including breakbulk, dry bulk, vehicles and containers. Enstructure operates from 21 U.S. ports on the Eastern mid-Atlantic seaboard, the Gulf of Mexico, Florida and sites on the Mississippi River.
Green said that in attempting to fill Southeast Toyota’s spot, the port aimed for a tenant that would expand the diversity of the port’s cargo operations. Citing climate-related problems that are reducing ship traffic through the Panama Canal and the Mideast conflict that is similarly affecting shipping through the Suez Canal, he said it was critical for JaxPort not to rely too heavily on any one stream of shipping, such as automobiles.
“We’re diversified enough to kind of weather through those situations, to give us enough time to bounce back,” he said.
“As we see those situations, diversification becomes high on our list.”
According to JaxPort, Enstructure has agreed to develop at least 200,000 square feet of new warehousing at Talleyrand, which will increase the port’s capacity to store noncontainerized cargo under roof by 20%.
“Expanding our Talleyrand Marine Terminal operations is a strategic priority for Enstructure and we look forward to working closely with the JaxPort team to further diversify our cargo mix,” said Matthew Satnick and Philippe De Montigny, co-CEOs of Enstructure, in a news release.
Green described the lease as “pretty straightforward” and said it included no publicly funded incentives for Enstructure.
The deal is expected to return $136.6 million to JaxPort over the lease’s lifespan, and possibly more.
Green said the $136.6 million figure was based on a minimum annual guarantee based on 80% of Enstructure’s expected cargo volume. The return could be higher if Enstructure exceeds its target volume.
Talleyrand Marine Terminal is 2.3 miles north of EverBank Stadium along the St. Johns River.
Site features include a berth along the St. Johns River federal shipping channel, on-dock rail by several providers and a port-designated roadway.
Southeast Toyota Distributors announced in 2022 that it would move its operations from Talleyrand to the Blount Island Marine Terminal in 2025.
The port authority board voted unanimously in April 2022 to approve a 25-year lease for the Blount Island site.
Southeast Toyota will operate from a new $120 million facility, with more than $100 million of the cost funded by Southeast Toyota and the rest by taxpayers.