Paul Anderson, President, CEO

FTZ No. 79 • 5,000 total acres 38 berths • 916,000 sq. ft. warehouse space

• 43-ft. channel • ICTF

Rail: CSX

Highways: I-4, I-75, I-275

Top export destinations: India, Brazil, Mexico

Top export commodities: Phosphate/Fertilizer Products, Steel, General Merchandise

Paul Anderson: With a population fast approaching 20 million people, Florida is about to overtake New York as the third largest state. About half that population resides in the Tampa Bay/Orlando I-4 corridor region, which also welcomes more than 60 million tourists per year, making it a huge consumer market, growing at twice the rate of South Florida.

It’s not surprising then that the Port Tampa Bay/I-4 corridor is home to the largest concentration of distribution centers (DC) in Florida, given its position as both the population and geographic center of the state. The latest is Amazon, which now has two new 1-million-square-foot DCs under construction in Tampa Bay, its firsts in Florida.

In addition to being an expanding container gateway, Port Tampa Bay’s real strength is its diversity. Already Florida’s largest port in terms of cargo tonnage and real estate, Port Tampa Bay handles everything from petroleum products and construction materials to fertilizer, vehicles and refrigerated products, not to mention being a major ship-building/repair hub. A new dedicated truck ramp now provides a direct connection to the interstate and last year, together with CSX, we opened the Tampa Gateway Rail Terminal, Florida’s first on-dock unit train capable facility.