A Manatee County developer hopes to build a transport center near Port Manatee that would service truckers traveling to and from the port.
The estimated $8 million project on approximately eight acres of land would serve as a fueling center and a place where truckers could grab a meal and relax in a lounge with Internet access and televisions.
Robert Bolt, a partner in Going Up Partners of North River LLC, said the aim of the project is to take advantage of an expected increase in future trade at Port Manatee as a result of the ongoing widening of the Panama Canal, which should be completed in about four years.
Bolt has selected two parcels that would be well-suited for the project and are each about three-quarters of a mile from the port.
The locations, which he declined to disclose because of ongoing property negotiations, would also fall under the recently designated Port Encouragement Zone, which offers incentives like speedy plan approval and impact fee reductions.
“The port is posturing itself for the opening of the Panama Canal,” Bolt said. “I believe this is an amenity that will enhance the encouragement zone and businesses in the encouragement zone, as well as Port Manatee and the traffic that goes through there.”
Bolt, a 30-year resident of Manatee County who developed the Cartagena Condominiums in El Conquistador, plans to soon take the project before the Manatee Port Authority for feedback.
He also plans to have discussions with planners in Manatee County’s planning department, he said.
Bolt envisions the transport center to be a clean, well-designed facility that would be a departure from the stereotypical image of the average truck stop.
He and his partners are weighing the economic environment before proceeding with the project, but may seek to take advantage of lower construction costs derived from the recession.
“It may behoove us to start bringing this under construction while the costs are so low,” Bolt said.
“The question is, is there enough business there now?”
Once built, the facility would provide 12 to 20 jobs, not including individuals employed at a future food service provider, Bolt said.
Port Manatee Executive Director David McDonald said he has met with Bolt and thinks the planned center would benefit the port and meet the definition of a port-related business under the guidelines of the encouragement zone.
About 2,000 trucks move in and out of the port each day, but that could grow to as many as 4,000 within the next several years, he said.
Therefore, he said, a facility like the one Bolt is proposing would make sense.
“I think it would be an asset and a benefit to the port community and provide some services that are currently not provided in this area,” McDonald said. “It looked like a nice concept. You have to get it from paper onto asphalt, but as far as the concept, it looked like an asset to the port’s master plan.”
Though she had not seen the plans, port authority member Carol Whitmore said the project appeared to be something that would fit the standards of a port-related business.
“It’s something I would be open to look at for sure,” she said.
Port authority member Ron Getman also said the project sounded logical.
“We do over a thousand trucks a day now,” Getman said. “It would seem that it would be a likely candidate to fall within the descriptive parameters of the types of businesses that we would want to have there.”
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