Business View Magazine
7
port; they are here every other day,” he says.
According to Almira, the economic impact of the Port
on many communities, both near Palm Beach and
beyond, is significant. “Because of the Port of Palm
Beach, there are 3,000 jobs that are directly impacted
by us being here,” he says. “Another way of looking at
it is, if tomorrow, the Port was to be converted into con-
dominiums, there will be 3,000 jobs lost in the market-
place. The Port provides a $2 billion, overall economic
impact. It contributes over $185 million in business
revenue and $17.5 million in annual tenant-contribut-
ed state and local taxes. And in the event that the Port
is ever impacted negatively, say by a hurricane, and
is closed by the Coast Guard for any length of time,
“40 percent of the food that gets distributed in the Ca-
ribbean basin would not get to where it needs to go,”
Almira adds.
While Almira admits that the Port has a relatively small
footprint, it still boasts of being the most efficient con-
tainer terminal in the United States. “You measure ef-
ficiency by how many containers an acre handles on
a yearly basis,” he explains. “Tropical Shipping is able
to handle over 7,500 containers per acre, per year.
The average up and down the U.S. east coast is some-
where in the vicinity of about two to three thousand.”
Efficiency is also the watchword when it comes to the
truckers who must pick up and offload those contain-
ers in a timely fashion. “If truckers don’t have an easy
time to get in and out, you’ll hear about it immediate-
ly,” Almira says. “Their ability to make money depends
on their ability to deliver and pick up containers or bulk
cargo of any sort. That’s why I stress that that connec-
tion has got to be the least amount of time inside the
Port. We cannot have congestion in this Port. You have
to be in and out of here in less than a half hour. If it
takes more, there’s a problem.”
Now that the Port of Palm Beach has crossed the hun-
dred year mark, Almira is looking toward the future: “I
