Port hub to extend container capacity

Port Otago is expanding its footprint around Dunedin to increase its warehousing and container-handling capacity - with developments and plans under way for Sawyers Bay, Dunedin and a major hub in Mosgiel.

With Port Chalmers wharf space at a premium and Port Otago unable to reclaim further land under the Resource Management Act, chief executive Geoff Plunket said development sites had to be identified and integrated to underpin future expansion.

In a presentation of its draft statement of corporate intent to the Otago Regional Council yesterday, Port Otago outlined to its owner its three-year plan, which will be reviewed annually.

Mr Plunket said later that rail access for two sites, in Mosgiel and Dunedin, had partially driven the decisions for redevelopment.

Mosgiel will host an "inland port" - much talked about in recent years - on a 2.5ha site next to the aero club and beside Fonterra's warehousing facility, bought last year by Port Otago.

Its worth is covered by a confidentiality agreement.

It would have an administration building, container repair area and otherwise be used for outdoors container storage, or for customers, such as Fonterra.

While larger than the Dunedin site, with its capacity of about 1300 TEUs (20-foot equivalent container units), Mosgiel would have a "much lower" number because containers would "flow through" while in use, rather than be stored, he said.

Mr Plunket noted there "would not be skyscraper stacks" of containers on the site, and costing of the full development was yet to be finalised.

The "short-term" priority was to develop Dunedin facilities, then those at Sawyers Bay and then Mosgiel, the latter ready by 2015, or sooner if demand warranted it.

"These plans and developments will be very much driven by commercial demand," he said.

Port Otago is about to start remediation work on contamination at a 2ha former tannery site at Sawyers Bay, then removing soil, capping and sealing the land.

This development would be "warehouse oriented", with covered sheds where imported containers or those for export could be unpacked or packed.

In Dunedin, the existing Strathallan St empty container depot (which had $700,000 spent on it last year) will get a further $500,000 spent on improvements this year, Mr Plunket said.

A series of development phases would continue during the next three or four years.


Expansion agenda
Port Otago's corporate intentions include. -
• Starting plans to develop a container hub site at Odlins Place, Mosgiel.
• Starting development and remediation of a contaminated Sawyers Bay site, followed by the first stage of a storage and distribution hub.
• Complete redevelopment of South Freight Ltd container depot in Strathallan St, Dunedin.


 

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