Baldwin County is growing again, this time in Loxley.

Baldwin County Economic Development Alliance President and CEO Lee Lawson, along with state and local officials, held a groundbreaking ceremony for the Port Alabama Industrial Center on Wednesday, Aug. 21.

The event celebrated plans for the 12,000,000-square-foot, three-phase development that will be located along Highway 59 and 90 just south of I-10. The approximately 904-acre site will be the closest and largest contiguous site to the Port of Mobile and will help accommodate the demand for industrial space in the Alabama Gulf Coast market, according to a press release.

“This is nine years in the making to have industrial product and commercial product for this market. The demand is here in our market,” Lawson said.

“This is a very unique project. You hear that noise? That’s the interstate. Nothing like location, location, location, and that’s what we’re looking at here,” U.S. Rep. Jerry Carl (R-AL) said. “We’re going to have a widening of the ship channel, and you’re going to see an uptick dramatically in the cargo that’s coming in and out of there from a container standpoint…We have a flood of businesses coming. We need more projects like this.”

The land where the industrial center will be built is the former farmlands of the Corte family in Loxley, a property that has not changed hands since the late 1800s. It is within Loxley’s growing industrial corridor, which has added 350 new direct jobs and over $150 million of investment in the area within the last few years.

“Baldwin County is growing, and if you don’t grow with it, you will get left behind, and I want to make sure Loxley doesn’t get left behind,” Loxley Mayor Richard Teal said, holding back tears as he described picking potatoes from the field as a child. “What this is going to mean to Loxley, it’s going to create over 300 jobs…what we think (Loxley) should do is be the greatest place to live with the great opportunity to go to work in Baldwin County.”

Port of Mobile Chief Commercial Officer Beth Branch described the port, located "just down the road," as the fastest-growing container port in the United States, growing about 63% over the past five years.

“You’ve got a real recipe for need, use and building out an ecosystem of warehousing and logistics,” Branch said. "I think this development is here at the right time at the right place.”

Gulf Corp, a Texas-based company, will lead the development of the project.

“When we first started looking at this market, we had a great track record on the Southern border, and the stories are so similar, high volume port, demand outpacing supply three, four, five times, and the timing was there,” Gulf Corp CEO Austin Ames said. “Something special is about to come out of the ground here. We’re on the cusp of a really good run for the next 10, 15, 20 years.”

According to marketing materials, Phase 1 of the project, a large industrial building, is expected to be delivered in Q3 of 2025.