A United States company could be bringing a cold storage warehouse to Port Saint John.
Americold is looking at the feasibility of a potential $100-million facility on the west side of the port.
Craig Bell Estabrooks, president and CEO of the port, said it is an exciting prospect for them.
“Cold storage and the cold supply chain is a big part of our vision on how we’re going to keep the momentum and keep growing the container volumes at the Port of Saint John,” Bell Estabrooks said in an interview earlier this week.
The company held an open house last week to gauge interest from the community and give residents a chance to learn more about the proposal.
Its proposal is for a building with an area of 17,733 square metres (190,875 square feet) and a height of 18.6 metres.
Bell Estabrooks said a cold storage facility would benefit not only Saint John but the region as a whole by helping to create supply chain resiliency.
“We’ve learned through the pandemic and through other environmental issues and challenges related to climate change that we see a real strain on our infrastructure and a real strain on supply chain across North America, Europe and all parts of the world,” he said.
In addition, having a cold storage facility would make Port Saint John even more attractive to shipping companies, said Bell Estabrooks.
“So we really see that adding value through that supply chain resiliency and having cold storage and having optionality in rail, for example, it just enhances the whole supply chain.
The facility would be located on the last piece of unleased land on the west side between the Crosby’s terminal and tank farm and the Bay Ferries terminal.
Bell Estabrooks said they expect Americold will come back to the port “in the coming months” to determine whether they feel the project is feasible.
From there, they would continue to finalize any regulatory approvals that they would need to secure before finalizing a lease negotiation with the port, he said.
Quite frankly, we’re thrilled that people are talking about this port in a positive way and that they’re at least exploring using their capital dollars to help their business and, in turn, create more activity here.”
