Congressman Mario Díaz-Balart to attend PortMiami groundbreaking ceremony

On Monday, July 21, Congressman Mario Díaz-Balart will be attending the official groundbreaking ceremony for PortMiami’s new Phytosanitary and Cold Chain Processing Facility, a project for which he secured $44 million in federal funding back in 2020.

This is a big deal for Miami and Florida as it will be the first center of its kind in Florida and the largest in the United States.

For years, PortMiami, one of the busiest and most strategic ports in the country, had been operating at a disadvantage. While other ports could process thousands of pallets at once, PortMiami’s space was limited to fumigating just 20 pallets per trailer and paying a U.S. Department of Agriculture fee each time. This inefficiency placed the region’s competitiveness and supply chain integrity at risk.

That’s why under the Fiscal Year 2019 Appropriations bill, Congressman Díaz-Balart created, for the first time ever, a dedicated pot of money specifically for seaports totaling $293 million. From this total, he set aside $93 million for the top 15 seaports in the country, with priority consideration given to ports in need of a fumigation facility, such as PortMiami.

This groundbreaking is possible because of the $44 million award through the U.S. Dept of Transportation to help construct this 340,000 square feet, state-of-the-art facility, with approximately 20% dedicated to advanced phytosanitary technology and the remaining 80% optimized for cold storage logistics, including refrigerated warehousing, loading docks, and office space. The facility will be capable of treating over 20K TEUs per year and will accommodate more than 25,000 pallet positions for chilled and frozen storage, supporting high-throughput operations and efficient supply chain integration.

Former Port Director Juan Kuryla, with then-Aviation Director Lester Sola, and the County under then-Mayor Carlos A. Giménez were able to identify land at Miami International Airport for the construction of this renowned facility. Current PortMiami Director and CEO Hydi Webb was also instrumental in this process. This partnership shows how local leaders work jointly to advance Miami-Dade County’s priorities. This is how it’s supposed to work.