By Maritime Logistics Centre

By Magdalena Wolff

The city of Gdansk intends to develop and manage the logistics and distribution centre on ca. 200 ha of land located in the Port of Gdansk, in direct vicinity of Deep Water Container Terminal. Gdansk has designated this area as a natural extension of the Outer Harbour for development of logistics, distribution and even production facilities.

Port of Gdansk is one of the few non-freezing ports of the Baltic Sea, allowing for all year round access and is located in an area which has insufficient supply of logistics facilities. The Port of Gdansk is a key link of the Trans-European Transport Corridor no. 6 connecting the Nordic Countries with Southern & Eastern Europe. There has been strong growth in container transportation in the Port of Gdansk, showing a five fold increase in the past five years.

The newly developed Deep Water Container Terminal has now a 500,000 TEU capacity, with planned potential to increase to ca. 2,000,000 TEU per annum. The logistics and distribution centre will be located alongside Sucharskiego Street scheduled for redevelopment as a part of a ring-road around Gdansk, linked with the A1 motorway. The total area of approx. 200 ha will be developed in the course of the project with a total build out exceeding 700,000 sq m.

Furthermore, the possibility of adding a Port Free Zone has been widely considered as the entrepreneurs acting in PFZ are able to store imported goods for an unlimited time avoiding customs, tax procedures and costs. Over the last year, 200,000 tones of cargo were handled in already existing PFZ in Gdansk, including nearly 60,000 imported vehicles.

Gdansk is currently considering a long-term lease of the property for development of the logistics and distribution centre. The city would like to maintain a flexible approach in terms of the project development and is therefore flexible and open to new proposals considering alternative plans for the project.

The first tenders for lease are planned in the first quarter of 2009.