Miami International Airport (MIA) has secured investment of at least $400m for the development of a vertically-focused cargo facility that will increase the airport’s total cargo capacity by at least 50% or potentially up to 2m tons annually.
Air Cargo News first reported on MIA's plans for the facility in 2022 as it began running out of air cargo handling capacity and faced the challenge of how to expand in limited space to meet increasing demand.
Now, the Miami-Dade Board of County Commissioners has approved investment for the construction of a four-story cargo facility at MIA that is understood to "be the first of its kind in the Western Hemisphere", said the airport.
Scheduled for completion in 2029, the Vertically Integrated Cargo Community (VICC) will comprise a nearly 800,000 sq ft facility on 11 acres of airport land.
The facility will bring MIA’s total capacity to a minimum of 4.5m tons of cargo and potentially 5m tons. This is enough to bring security of capacity until 2041 said the airport.
Without the VICC, MIA would begin to reach capacity at 3m tons of cargo annually. The airport is on pace for 2.9m tons of cargo in 2024.
Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said: "MIA continues to increase its ranks among U.S. airports and worldwide regarding cargo volume. With the construction of this unprecedented, state-of-the-art air cargo facility now on track, the sky is the limit for where MIA can lead the air cargo industry globally after consecutive record-breaking years in cargo growth since 2020."
VICC is planned to be a sustainable facility with silver Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification and silver certification from Global Infrastructure Basel under SuRe standards for sustainability and resiliency.
The Board of County Commissioners approved a lease agreement with a private developer that will require at least 60% of the design and construction firms to be headquartered in Miami-Dade County and for those firms to hire registered small businesses during all project phases.
