California Partners with Chunker on Pop-up Container Yards
The warehouse rental network will turn armories, fairgrounds and a former prison into logistics hubs to ease congestion at ports.
California is partnering with the online on-demand warehouse marketplace Chunker to create six new pop-up logistics hubs on state land to help ease the container congestion at backed up ports in the Golden State.
Chunker, which bills itself as “the Airbnb of short-term, on-demand warehouse space” in the US, will lease a total of 150 acres at three armories, two fairgrounds and a former prison site in California that will be converted into logistics facilities that, combined, can handle 20,000 containers.
According to state officials, Chunker’s one-year contract to equip and manage the new pop-up container yards requires the company to pay California 5 percent of its profits from the new logistics hubs. The deal includes a second-year option.
Three of the new pop-up logistics facilities will service containers shipped to ports near San Francisco, while the other three are in the Los Angeles area.
The sites include the Lancaster Armory, the National Guard Armory in Stockton, the San Joaquin County Fairgrounds, the A.V. Fair and Events Center, an armory in Palmdale and the shuttered site of the Deuel Vocational Institution in San Joaquin County.
“California has taken swift action to keep goods moving at the state’s ports, leveraging our strategic partnerships to develop multifaceted solutions, including securing additional storage space for thousands of shipping containers,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said, in a statement announcing the contract with Chunker.
Chunker, which has five other storage facilities in the Los Angeles area that can handle a total of 5,000 containers, says the deal with the state makes it the largest off-port container storage company in California. The company will coordinate between California ports, shipping/trucking companies and cargo owners to help move the containers through the pop-up facilities.
Chunker CEO Brad Wright tells GlobeSt.com that pop-up container facilities are a growth strategy for Chunker because they’re a perfect fit with the company’s core business of matching companies that need short-term space with vacant warehouse space. The company’s online marketplace is listing 30M SF of industrial space in 48 states.
Cargo owners or 3PLs can store containers at the pop-up yards while using Chunker’s platform to find warehouse space for their contents, he said. The pop-up facilities can store full containers or empties.
Some of the busiest ports in the US are turning to pop-up container yards to alleviate the congestion from backed-up global supply chains. In November, the Georgia Ports Authority announced it would convert five existing inland facilities in Georgia and North Carolina into pop-up container years.
In January, the Port of Oakland announced it would open a nearby pop-up to expedite truck turn times.