Focus on Manatee: Port Manatee becomes a building force for Manatee County

As the new year begins, Port Manatee is building upon its integral role in booming construction in the Manatee County area.

With construction-related commodities moving across Port Manatee docks at a pace approaching 1 million tons a year, Manatee County’s seaport is supporting everything from the paving of wider highways to the erection of homes and office buildings in what continues to be identified as one of the nation’s 10 fastest-growing metropolitan areas.

Granite coming to Port Manatee from Canada and limestone arriving from the Bahamas to augment domestic supplies are being put to use in the widening of Interstate 75 and other Southwest and Central Florida roadway projects, while imported lumber and plywood, as well as aluminum and steel, are among commodities utilized in residential and commercial construction.

Recent developments at Port Manatee supporting this thriving activity include the leasing of a portion of the Martin Marietta property at the port to Orlando-based Prestige Concrete Products, which employs imported materials in the making of concrete blocks used in construction and renovation of bridges and highways, commercial buildings and homes and pools.

Thus, the materials that are shipped into Port Manatee and put to use locally are backing even more family-wage construction jobs for the area, and the building of more houses means heightened demand for a full spectrum of consumer goods, including fruits and vegetables for tables and gasoline for car fuel tanks, that also are among significant Port Manatee imports.

The latest figures indicate Port Manatee is supporting more than 24,000 jobs in the area while generating total annual economic impacts of $2.3 billion. The region’s sustained building boom – and Port Manatee’s support of it – should translate to still greater such impacts.

Among a host of record-breaking throughput numbers, statistics for the fiscal year ended Sept. 30, 2017, show 868,900 tons of construction-related commodities imported into Port Manatee, up 32 percent from the preceding 12-month period. The goods include granite, fly ash, aluminum, limestone, lumber, slag, plywood and steel, including reinforcing bars known as rebar.

Of further note is the fact that, by being buoyed by a diverse range of cargos, Port Manatee is ideally positioned to sustain its broad-based growth – and the overall growth of the region – without tenuous reliance upon a single commodity from a lone trade partner.

In 2018, we look forward to furthering Port Manatee’s vital role in the flourishing of the Manatee County area, and we share our sincere wishes that you and yours will continue to abundantly benefit from the blessings we enjoy.

This story was originally published January 7, 2018 at 8:35 AM with the headline "Focus on Manatee: Port Manatee becomes a building force for Manatee County."