Savannah Chamber

18 12 200,000 containers per year and deliver them to the Port of Savannah by rail. The Mason Mega-Rail Terminal at the Port of Savannah provides frequent and fast rail services to Midwestern cities like Memphis, St. Louis, Chicago, and cities in the Ohio Valley. The Mason-Mega Rail Terminal doubles the Port of Savannah's rail capacity, making it the largest on-dock rail terminal at any port in North America. Meanwhile, the Savannah Harbor Deepening Project is complete. The high-tide depth of 54 feet allows larger container ships to navigate the channel with fewer tidal and loading restrictions. The Port Authority's "Peak Capacity' project recently delivered 820,000 TEUs of additional capacity. The capacity is needed. In fiscal year 2024, the Port of Savannah moved 5.25 million TEUs containers. Plans call for the Port of Savannah to move from a 7.0 million TEU capacity port to a 12 million TEU capacity port in less than a decade. In 2024, the Port of Brunswick handled 876,000 units of autos and high/heavy machinery, but that included cargo diverted from the Port of Baltimore. The Port of Brunswick's current annual capacity is about 1 million units and plans call for the annual throughput capacity of about 1.4 million units. Many of the major distribution and logistics project announcements over 2022-24 will be building out. For example, Burlington Stores will open a 2 million-square-foot distribution center in the Interstate West Industrial Park near Savannah in 2026. P&B Cold Storage announced plans to build a new cold storage facility in Valdosta that create 100 jobs when in opens in early 2025. In 2024, Aertssen Logistics announced that it will open an equipment processing center near the Port of Savannah. In 2023, Sam's Club announced plans to build a new distribution center in Lithia Springs that will create 600 new jobs. In 2023, Bradshaw Homes announced plans to build its East Coast distribution center near the Port of Savannah, creating over 230 jobs. In 2023, Plastics Express announced that it would double its Georgia operations, building a second shipping facility in Savannah that would create about 200 new jobs. In 2022, Procter & Gamble announced that it would build a new distribution center in Butts County, creating 350 jobs. In 2022, Duluth Trading Company announced that it will build a new distribution and fulfillment facility in Bartow County that will create 300 jobs. In 2022, Ryder Systems choose Locust Grove for its new, high-tech third party-distribution center, creating 250 jobs. In 2024, major labor disputes (strikes) reducing spending by Georgia's film industry. Assuming labor disputes are settled, we expect Georgia's film industry to continue to recover in 2025. Business Facilities magazine currently ranks Georgia No. 1 in motion picture and television production. State incentives account for the recent growth of Georgia's film industry. Incentives will help ensure that nearly all studio space is booked. The Georgia Film Academy helps to ensure that well-trained workers are available. Georgia's growing diversity of locations provides a good fit for a wide range of film and TV productions. For example, Pigmental Studios announced plans for a $200 million studio complex near downtown St. Mary's. As the professional, technical, and physical infrastructure becomes even more fully developed, the economic benefits of each dollar spent on film and television production in Georgia will generate larger economic impacts for our state's economy. Georgia's financial institutions are weathering the economic slowdown well, but as the economy slows, credit problems will worsen. We do not expect a tidal wave of bank failures like we experienced in the wake of the Great Recession, but banks with high exposure to commercial real estate loans or with large holdings of commercial mortgage-backed securities bear watching. We expect that cuts in policy interest rates by the Federal Reserve will help the industry, Demographic trends such as above-average population growth will help Georgia's financial institutions, too. The end of the recent downcycle in single- family housing will help financial institutions. Plus, it is very reassuring that almost all new mortgage loans are very well collateralized. Although homes are moderately overvalued, we expect home prices to increase slightly or hold steady. It is unlikely that many people owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth. In 2025, deposits will continue to migrate from banks to higher yielding alternatives, but the migration rate will slow as policy interest rates fall. For about two years, an inverted or flat yield curve has been limiting financial institutions' ability to profit from borrowing short and lending long. We expect long-term yields to rise above short-term yields by mid-2025, which will eliminate the yield curve inversion. That bodes well for banks.

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