JACKSONVILLE, Fla — An exciting announcement for those at Jacksonville Port Authority was made Monday. Southeast Toyota Distributors, or SET, is expanding on Blount Island.
The JAXPORT Board of Directors unanimously approved a $210 million lease and agreement for the company to relocate. Operations will move from its two facilities in Talleyrand to one 88-acre property at JAXPORT's Blount Island Marine Terminal.
SET boasts it's the world's largest independent distributor of Toyota vehicles. The company supports 800 jobs and has been at JAXPORT for over 50 years.
First Coast News asked how this announcement could impact vehicle supply and demand in the area.
"Toyota's done a great job with maintaining their vehicle production over the past, really, 18 months," said Casey Gunnell, Jr., group vice president for Southeast Toyota. "We've seen a steady flow of vehicles that are still coming in via these containers, or these ships, I should say. As we look into the future, although we've had some declines in volume, we still remain steady, as I said before, and once we get into the third quarter we should be back to basically where we were pre-pandemic with vehicle processing, which is great."
Construction on the new facility is planned to be complete in late 2024.