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Fastfrate Moving into the Fast Lane
The Chronicle Herald (Halifax, NS)
January 20, 2007
Last year Consolidated Fastfrate announced that it would spend $10 million on a new distribution warehouse in Burnside, an initiative welcomed by the province, the Office of Economic Development, Nova Scotia Business Inc., the Halifax Port Authority, the Greater Halifax Partnership and ACOA. The opening is slated for the spring of 2007.
"There were miscellaneous delays that go along with the business of building," says Rob Pittman, Manager at Fastfrate. "But everyone has been very supportive, and we are now in the building stage and we’re progressing."
He adds that while winter construction provides scenarios that could go either way, and that they’ll have to see how things go in January and February, the plan is to have the facility at least partially occupied by April.
"We’d like full occupation by the end of June," he says.
The facility is going to be a TDW, a Transload Distribution Warehouse, and one of its primary functions will be to unload the ocean containers and reload them on local rail or road units.
"We really wanted to increase our capacity," says Pittman. "At our current facility we can unload about 100 containers per week and with the new facility and its 60 doors we could go up to 300 per week."
He adds further that, depending on scheduling and business, the company could be working 24-7.
"It’s the missing piece of the puzzle for us," he says. "We’ll now have big operations on both coasts to prevent over-congestion on one end and open the country up for even more business."
It was no mistake that Halifax was chosen as the site for the new facility.
"Halifax is not only a major shipping and distribution hub, it also has many competitive advantages and it’s support for business investment makes it even more attractive," says Pittman. "It’s very exciting to be a small part of the growth here in Halifax. It’s a good project not only for the city and the municipality. It’s good for the province and for the country, and there are a lot of positive spin-offs."
Shown above is Rob Pittman, Fastfrate Halifax Branch Manager.
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