Article by: Karen Brune Mathis | Jax Daily Record | To view the full article, click here.
Southeast Toyota Distributors LLC continues its significant investment in Jacksonville with expansion in Westlake Industrial Park in West Jacksonville.
It supports what President Brent Sergot said in a statement in April 2023.
“We are in the midst of the largest investment in our history,” he said.
The city issued a permit May 7 for Southeast Toyota Distributors LLC to make office additions and renovations at its Westlake Industrial Park operation at a job cost of $1.7 million.
Jacksonville-based firms Auld & White Constructors LLC, kasper Architects + Associates Inc. and England-Thims & Miller Inc. are the contractor, architect and civil engineer.
Plans show office renovations to 27,574 square feet of space at 9985 Pritchard Road, where Southeast Toyota owns and operates a Toyota processing and distribution facility on 250 acres.
A separate site plan shows existing office renovations of about 20,000 square feet and an expansion of about 13,460 square feet. The project is for support services for its operations.
Southeast Toyota said there are 12 buildings totaling 381,413 square feet of space on the 250-acre site.
Westlake Industrial Park is along Pritchard Road, west of Interstate 295, in far west Jacksonville.
The Southeast Toyota facility is next to Florida Gateway Logistics Park, where the company bought Building 3 and expansion property in March 2023 for $39.5 million.
The city issued a permit in August for Evans General Contractors of Savannah, Georgia, to renovate that 426,562-square-foot building at 9909 Pritchard Road at a job cost of $21 million.
Southeast Toyota intends to consolidate its parts distribution there.
The permit cost boosts Southeast Toyota’s investment in that property to at least $60.5 million. The company paid $38.27 million for the building and $1.2 million for an expansion parcel of about 4.5 acres that would allow for another 100,000 square feet.
All of that is part of a larger investment by Southeast Toyota Distributors in Jacksonville.
It is building a new processing center at the JaxPort Blount Island Marine Terminal while selling its Baymeadows buildings and leaving its JaxPort Talleyrand terminal property.
“With the continued population migration to the Southeast, it is imperative that we continue to look for new ways to evolve our approach to best serve the Toyota dealers in our region,” Sergot said in the April 2023 statement.
Eric Carter, group vice president of operations, said in a statement at the time that Southeast Toyota Distributors is continuing its long-term commitment to growth in Jacksonville.
“With Toyota’s continued development and success within our five-state footprint, it was time to modernize our facilities with the addition of a new parts distribution center in Westlake and a ground up state-of-the-art vehicle processing center with the Jacksonville Port Authority,” Carter said.
“This new location will expand our capacity while gaining us the ability to receive vehicles by rail and sea.”
Southeast Toyota Distributors is part of Deerfield Beach-based JM Family Enterprises Inc., a privately held company founded in 1968 by automotive pioneer Jim Moran when he partnered with Toyota Motor Sales to help expand the automaker’s presence in the U.S. market.
Southeast Toyota Distributors said in April 2022 it would move its auto processing operations from JaxPort’s Talleyrand terminal to an 88-acre site at the Blount Island terminal.
Kasper architects + associates is designing that facility as well. J.E. Dunn Construction Co. is the construction manager along with the kasper team.
Buildings are on the way up at the Southeast Toyota Distributors auto processing center at the Blount Island Marine Terminal with approval for the $60 million processing and operations support buildings.
The city issued a permit April 9 for J.E. Dunn Construction to build the 337,000-square-foot concrete tilt-wall and structural steel structure at 8975 Dave Rawls Blvd. at the North Jacksonville terminal. That structure is the industrial processing and accessories facility.
The operations support building is described as two stories and 24,000 square feet.
The permit follows the two foundation permits issued in October for a $7 million concrete foundation for the accessories industrial building and a $3 million foundation for the operations building.
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