There is no budget problem at the Fernandina Port. It's a 'Why does this exist?' problem.
The future is not an extension of the past.
Comments on a recent news report on the Port of Fernandina. 2023.09.14 https://fernandinaobserver.com/county-news/port-commission-still-short-of-a-valid-budget/
This is an article that describes a leaderless organization having a difficult time creating a balanced budget for the next year. A budget that, likely, can only be balanced for a year by selling off assets. And if so, the real problem is delayed only one year and less resources are available to solve the real problem.
And what is the real problem?
The Port of Fernandina has no economic value to the economy of the USA and has a negative value to the community it lives in. The Port should not exist. The best plan is a plan to gracefully close the port at the least expense to the community.
Not recognizing the real need to close the Port just leads to more unrecoverable expense AND the Port taking riskier actions in a futile attempt to save itself from inevitable closure.
Why doesn’t the Port succeed? Why can’t it succeed?
Marginal success in the past doesn’t change todays reality. The Port cannot ever succeed. Here are some of the reasons:
[a] Today ocean freight is all about shipping closed containers of standard size (typically a multiple of 20’ in length. The container operations require vast spaces and the ability to serve multiple ships quickly. High volume low cost. Big staging areas for incoming and outgoing containers as well as for trucks coming and going. Fernandina Port cannot serve this type of shipping traffic.
[b] For non containerized cargo, there are only a few categories that are economical like grain or autos. For resource shipments like grain, coal or mining ores, proximity to source materials and rail or barge connections are necessary. Totally not possible for Fernandina Port. Autos require huge staging areas. Totally not possible for Fernandina Port.
[c] The only category of ocean freight for Fernandina Port is breakbulk stuff going to places no one else wants to service. And oddly enough, Fernandina Port cannot succeed at this either. It will fail even in the face of short term success because if volume to a foreign port rises beyond the most modest levels, the cargo will move to another Port that will be able to serve it at lower cost.
[d] Cruise line port would likely be very successful for the Fernandina Port. The attachment to Fernandina Beach downtown would be a very attractive anchor to a cruise operation. Enough space to add a large garage for cruise passenger vehicle storage and for cruise line embarkation / dis embark operation. A meaningful per passenger charge would create a solid funding pool for profitable operation.
But a cruise port operation is very controversial with residents of Amelia Island and with Fernandina Beach voters. Add to that the current legal restriction (from the prior mill ownership) on cruise operations from the nearby paper plant and you have a very long term gridlock scenario. A cruise port is a dream that will not happen.
Bottom line: Especially in light of a ‘NEW Amelia Island’.
Just 20 years ago, Amelia Island was a sleepy 1950s style beach town. Lots of undeveloped land, a few retirees, many more townies (factory and other working families) and an overall modest working class ‘vibe’.
Today, Amelia Island including Fernandina Beach is 1/3 the way through a conversion from what it was to a modern, high end beach resort community. Expensive homes, expensive restaurants, and rich residents (some retired and some work from home). The island is moving upscale and that isn’t going to change.
As the island upscales, many of the former pieces of life on the island are going away. And industry is one off those things going away. The ‘new island’ people don’t want tractor trailers and freight trains. They don’t want industrial views. They want a better Palm Beach. And every new resident to the island doesn’t want the core of what Amelia Island was 20 years ago. And rich people with time on their hands will fiercely fight what they don’t like and just as fiercely vote for new services that fit their vision of what Amelia should be.
I’m not arguing whether the new Amelia Island is better than the old, I’m simply acknowledging that the new Amelia Island is the choice of it’s citizens and will be the prevailing direction.
We need to simply acknowledge that the NEW Amelia Island will be increasingly intolerant of industrial activities including the Fernandina Port. The port has no future.
Fernandina Port has no future. We should:
[a] be planning how to close the port as inexpensively as possible and
[b] begin the community process of figuring the best use of 20 acres on the water.
I have no strong opinion on how the property should be used (especially without a railroad running through it. As land for high density development, it could be worth $100 to $200 million and bring in 1,000 to 4,000 new tax paying residents.
Or it could be a park.
Or something mixed use of modest density that most of the community could accept.
The normal political process will determine what happens to the land.
But we know that the voters in Fernandina Beach would never vote for an expanded port. And the island as a whole would also push back.
We should immediately stop pretending we want a port and we should stop this awful business as usual activity trying to create a profitable ongoing port operation. We need to begin the process of winding down the Fernandina Port.
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Detail on why the Port cannot succeed.
[a] Today ocean freight is all about shipping closed containers of standard size (typically a multiple of 20’ in length. The container operations require vast spaces and the ability to serve multiple ships quickly. High volume low cost. Big staging areas for incoming and outgoing containers as well as for trucks coming and going.
Below is a picture of a modest sized container operation in Jacksonville. Note that it has over a mile of waterfront to operate within.
Note Fernandina Port. About a third of the waterfront (a generous determination) with no expansion possibility. And no room to store and stage containers.
[b] For non containerized cargo, there are only a few categories that are economical like grain or autos. For resource shipments like grain, coal or mining ores, proximity to source materials and rail or barge connections are necessary. Totally not possible for Fernandina Port.
Autos require huge staging areas. Totally not possible for Fernandina Port. This is the shipping port in Brunswick GA:
There are no high volume, high value non container cargo that is appropriate for Fernandina Port.
[c] The only category of ocean freight for Fernandina Port is breakbulk stuff going to places no one else wants to service. And oddly enough, Fernandina Port cannot succeed at this either.
It will fail even in the face of short term success because if volume to a foreign port rises beyond the most modest levels, the cargo will move to another Port that will be able to serve it at lower cost. Fernandina Port doesn’t have labor access advantages, low cost storage, low cost fuel, etc. Everything would be better at a more efficient Port once a certain traffic size is achieved. Additionally, shippers will always try to convert misfit items to fit in containers to save costs.
The result is that as clients of Fernandina Port grow, they will tend to move on. The result is that Fernandina Port will always lose it’s best customers and always have to hustle to get new customers using price to gain new traffic.