Officials cheer Philadelphia's Hyundai deal

The ships resemble sailing parking lots, up to 12 decks high and packed with as many as 6,500 shiny new cars.

Starting in early June, automakers Hyundai and Kia will send 150,000 cars a year from South Korea through the Port of Philadelphia, headed for U.S. showrooms.

Before a standing-room-only crowd Wednesday, Gov. Rendell, Mayor Nutter, and port officials hailed the deal, more than a year in the making, with Hyundai Motor Co. and its logistics affiliate, Glovis of America, to import and process new Hyundai and Kia vehicles through Packer Avenue Marine Terminal in South Philadelphia.

"These ships are like a floating parking garage," said Patrick Foran, Glovis' national manager of port operations, at the Philadelphia Regional Port Authority offices on Delaware Avenue.

"This is great news for the city of Philadelphia, the Port of Philadelphia, the region, and the commonwealth," Rendell said, to cheers.

The auto-finishing facility will create 415 "direct and indirect" port-related jobs, including 276 full-time jobs for longshoremen and Teamsters, who will unload the vehicles and prepare them for sale, Rendell said.

An estimated 102 ships a year carrying the cars from South Korea will sail up the Delaware River. They make several stops, including on the West Coast, and at Brunswick, Ga.

"We haven't handled cars here in the port for over a decade," said Thomas Holt Jr., chairman of Holt Logistics Inc., which leases the Packer terminal from the Philadelphia port authority.

"The International Longshoremen's Association, the Teamsters, the governor's office, the PRPA, everybody worked extremely hard to pull all this together," Holt said. "Hyundai and Kia make a high-quality product. It's good for everybody involved."

Glovis had previously moved the autos through ports in Newark, N.J., and Baltimore.

"It's an agreement where the Port of Philadelphia was able to take this business and consolidate it from other ports," Rendell said.

The Philadelphia port authority in October entered into a lease with Philly Ro-Ro Partners of Bellmawr, the developer, for about 90 acres at Pier 98 Annex, now a parking lot at Columbus Boulevard and Oregon Avenue. The car site also includes two nearby lots, known as the Whiskey and Savage Yards.

The port authority will make up to $1 million in capital improvements to Pier 98 Annex, and Philly Ro-Ro will invest $3.7 million in an automobile-handling facility, paint booths, car washes, and a parts warehouse.

"It is about jobs, about putting Philadelphians and people in the region to work. These are great jobs," Mayor Nutter told the crowd.

"Hyundai would not have made this decision were it not favorable to their business," said Paul Bingham, managing director of world trade and transportation markets for IHS Global Insight Inc. in Washington.

"With this volume of cars, it's great for the port and for the region," Bingham said. Handling cars is "a little more labor-intensive" than unloading a typical shipload of container cargo. "There's more revenue to the workforce, and it's very high-value cargo."