Commissioner Murman quoted in this Tampa Bay Times article on the Port:

Port Authority Board votes to authorize building new refrigerated warehouse

JAMAL THALJI

Tampa Bay Times

Tuesday, March 17, 2015 12:05pm

TAMPA – The Tampa Port Authority’s governing board on Tuesday authorized spending $20.8 million – half from the port, half from the state – to one day build a new refrigerated warehouse to bring back perishable foods Tampa’s docks.

Port officials said that they’re also negotiating with several companies looking to move their food products through Tampa.

“We’re very close,” said port CEO Paul Anderson.

The port voted to seek matching state funds, and committed to spending $10.4 million of its own money on the project. The board did not vote to actually start construction.

The board may wait to do that until it finds a food importer willing to sign a contract to commit to using the facility But the board could, in the future, also decide to launch the project without having a customer lined up.

The board also approved spending millions of port and state dollars to get the site ready for that future warehouse: moving utility lines, extending a rail line and dredging improvements. That work will start as soon as possible to get the site ready for the warehouse project.

“These items you’re approving today will support us in the coming months and years,” Anderson told the board.

Decades ago, Tampa’s port was known for its iconic banana docks. It was a thriving hub for imported fruit up until the 2000s. That’s when the business dried up. The last fruit importer left in 2009 and the port tore down its old, deteriorating fruit warehouses.

Port Manatee has supplanted Port Tampa Bay as the region’s hub for imported fruit. Tampa is trying to change that. But that would require building a new, modern refrigerated warehouse on Hookers Point to store those perishable foods.

Attracting new cargoes like imported fruit and cars have been a priority at the port since Anderson took over in 2013.

Hillsborough County Commission Chairwoman Sandra Murman, who sits on the port board, said she knows that the port’s negotiations with these potential customers are secret. But she’d still like to start learning more about these potential deals.

“I would really like to see the big picture,” she said. “I know some of these things are confidential … but we are doing great things, we are marketing and bringing people in, but I don’t have any quantifiable numbers.”

Anderson said those deals will become public as soon as the ink hits the contracts.

“We have skin in the game on all these projects,” he said. “We are not going to miss an opportunity.”