34 DC VELOCITY OCTOBER 2016 www.dcvelocity.com
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DELIVER
a prime market for speculative con-
struction, CBRE says.
LOCATION, LOCATION,
LOCATION
But the obstacles for Detroit are
as apparent as its possibilities.
Michigan, which appears on the
nation’s map as a mitten surround-
ed by water, is a headache for motor
carriers who use the Detroit River
to traverse the U.S.-Canada bor-
der. The 86-year-old Ambassador
Bridge, which connects Detroit with
Windsor, Ontario, and which last
year handled more than $120 bil-
lion in NAFTA-related trade, is burdened
with 14,000 vehicles a day—about 10,000
of them trucks—squeezed into just four
lanes of road. The span, which is owned
by industrialist Manuel “Matty” Moroun,
who built his fortune providing shipping
and logistics services to the auto industry,
is the busiest cross-border transport link
in North America.
Purolator International Inc., the U.S.
arm of Mississauga, Ontario-based transport firm Purolator Inc. and a big user of
the cross-border infrastructure, stopped
using the bridge years ago, according to
John T. Costanzo, president of the U.S.
arm. Instead, the unit’s drivers use the
less-congested Blue Water Bridge, which
connects the two countries at Sarnia,
Ontario, about 68 miles northwest of
Windsor. The relatively light vehicle backlogs at Sarnia outweigh the higher costs
and the longer transit times to get there,
Costanzo said.
Michigan’s far northern location makes
it unsuitable for handling the east-west
traffic through which most U.S. commerce flows, experts said. The state’s
northern locale and peninsula-like configuration also make it a poor choice for
nationwide retail distribution and e-commerce fulfillment, which is optimally handled through massive hubs in more centrally located and landlocked states like
Ohio. Cities like Chicago and Columbus,
Ohio, both not far from Detroit as the
logistics crow flies, have well-established
logistics hubs that are situated along east-west shipping routes.
Canada’s advanced and efficient infrastructure offers a compelling alternative to
Detroit and Michigan. Canada has invested heavily to build a world-class shipping network to support its export-driven
economy. U.S. exporters, especially in the
Midwest, will often bypass the U.S. to connect with Canada’s infrastructure, often
through Montreal-based rail powerhouse
Canadian National Inc. (CN), to get their
goods loaded onto vessels for delivery to
foreign markets, Kemmsies of JLL said.
Though Detroit lies along CN’s line
between Chicago and Montreal, the railroad doesn’t have a major presence there.
By contrast, CSX Corp., the Jacksonville,
Fla.-based Eastern railroad, uses Detroit
