Dutch Royal Family christens new cold storage facility in Henry County
Netherlands’ King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima visited the Peach State and toured the sprawling NewCold warehouse, a $333 million project that ranks among the largest in Henry County history. The Dutch Royal Family has christened a cold storage facility in Henry County, Georgia, as part of their two-day visit. The company, NewCold, was founded in 2012 and primarily operates cold storage facilities that store and ship perishable goods. The facility in McDonough, 30 miles southeast of downtown Atlanta, is the company's first dry-good storage facility and will expand to incorporate cold storage space. Construction on the second phase of the 820,000=square-foot campus will employ at least 170 workers, many of whom will monitor the heavy lifting of carrying cargo to its destination. The Dutch royal family toured the facility as part their two day visit.
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“The Netherlands and Georgia can support each other,” said Mark Harbers, minister of infrastructure and water management for The Netherlands. “Transport and logistics are in our DNA.”
Internationally known for its windmills, tulip fields and cycling infrastructure, the Netherlands is also famous as a shipping gateway for European commerce. Atlanta shares a similar reputation in North America as home of the world’s busiest airport, the Port of Savannah and several main railway spurs.
NewCold, which was founded in 2012, primarily operates cold storage facilities that store and ship perishable goods. Its facility in McDonough, located along Ga. 42 about 30 miles southeast of downtown Atlanta, is the company’s first dry-good storage facility in North America and will later expand to incorporate cold storage space.
Jonas Swarttouw, an executive vice president at NewCold, said construction on the second phase will begin later this year. When complete, the entire 820,000=square-foot campus will employ at least 170 workers, many of whom will monitor the scores of robots that do the heavy lifting of carrying cargo to their destination.
“Our industry is adopting automation at a much higher speed than in the past,” Swarttouw said. “We were one of the first movers on that part.”
The facility’s first phase is able to hold 85,000 pallets of goods — packaged popcorn was visible beneath the orange wrapping. Those pallets are ferried around a maze of tracks by autonomous robots and forklifts before eventually being loaded onto a tractor-trailer.
The Dutch royal family toured the facility as part of a planned two-day visit to Atlanta and Savannah. During the Georgia expedition, the king and queen met with Gov. Brian Kemp at the Gold Dome and with Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens along the Beltline. They also scheduled tours with the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Port of Savannah.
While Atlanta is a common stop for many foreign leaders and politicians, it’s rare for royal families and foreign dignitaries to come to town. Belgian Princess Astrid toured the city in 2022, marking the largest international trade visit in Atlanta since the 1996 Olympic Games.
The Netherlands ranks as Georgia’s 18th-largest trading partner and sixth=largest export market, purchasing $1.8 billion of Peach State goods in 2023, according to the Georgia Department of Economic Development. The agency said there are roughly 150 facilities owned by a Dutch parent company that operate in Georgia, which collectively employ 13,000 Georgians.
To woo NewCold to Georgia, the state Department of Economic Development offered NewCold a $400,000 EDGE grant, an incentive from one of the state’s so-called “deal closing” funds. The state said the facility’s employees will make an average salary of $60,000, which is more than 120% more than Henry County’s average.
Cold chain logistics and storage has experienced unprecedented demand in recent year because of a surge in online grocery sales, according to real estate services firm CBRE.
Metro Atlanta hosts multiple companies specializing in cold storage facilities, including Sandy Springs-based shipping giant UPS, refrigerated warehouse company Americold Realty Trust and Loganville dry ice equipment maker TOMCO2 Systems. Buckhead startup Envision Cold announced last year it received $500 million in backing to build a portfolio of cold chain logistics facilities across the country.
Konular: Royal Family, Environment-ESG