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Jafza’s North American operations to be based in Charleston
By Dan McCue
Staff Writer
Jafza International has named Clint Murphy its engineering principal in charge of North American operations and sent him to Charleston to establish the Dubai-based firm’s first formal project office in the United States.
The stateside entity is now formally known as Jafza South Carolina LLC.
The 43-year-old Indiana native most recently spent two years in the United Arab Emirates working as principal in charge of Dubai operations for Applied Technology and Management on several waterfront, infrastructure and transportation-related projects undertaken by the government and Island Global Yachting, an international marina development company.
These projects included the three Palm Islands, the World Island, fishing harbor redevelopments and numerous projects on Dubai Creek, the waterway that bisects the city of Dubai and its historic commercial center.
The Palm Islands are the world’s three largest manmade islands being built in the shape of a palm tree off the coast of Dubai. When the luxury resort islands are complete, they will be visible from the moon. The World Island project is a group of luxury manmade islands shaped like the continents of the world, also off the Dubai coast.
Last month, Jafza selected ATM to serve as project manager for its development of a massive logistics, distribution and manufacturing center on roughly 1,325 acres in Orangeburg’s Global Logistics Triangle.
Murphy will oversee ATM’s work and also the anticipated development of a network of similar sites throughout the United States and Canada.
“Orangeburg, Charleston and, by extension, all of South Carolina really will be the gateway into North America in years to come,” said Murphy.
A methodical approach
Preliminary plans now call for Jafza to break ground on the Orangeburg site in either late 2009 or early 2010.
Pointing to a detailed timeline spelling out specific project tasks and benchmarks posted outside his office door, Murphy said project management is virtually a passion in Dubai, where “things happen quickly, projects are very structured in terms of communication and you have to be very efficient in how you do things or else you’re just going to get run over.
“The other thing about Dubai is that there’s a real spirit of cooperation when it comes to economic development. Everyone has the sense that they’re helping to develop their city and their country. In that sense, there are similarities to the philosophy one finds here in South Carolina.”
Murphy sees the Orangeburg project as a chance to apply related skills he learned in Dubai to an undertaking that will create thousands of jobs in his own country, he said.
Seeking connectivity
Jafza still has needs outside of the borders of its property, he said.
“Connectivity that ultimately reduces the number of trucks on the road, that’s probably number one,” Murphy said. “Our goal, and it is one we are working toward with local entities, is to develop rail connectivity that will help reduce truck traffic and enhance the region’s quality of life as we grow.”
Members of Jafza’s Dubai-based marketing team visited South Carolina and the Orangeburg site in the past month, and are beginning to formulate a marketing strategy aimed at getting at least some of the 6,500 international companies currently doing business in Dubai’s Jebel Ali free trade zone to open facilities here, Murphy said.
“We have an entire staff in Dubai that is dedicated to this effort. Thanks to annual surveys we do of our tenant companies, we also have a pretty good idea of who is already looking at the U.S. market,” he said.
Jafza expects the first corporate tenants of its site in Orangeburg to move in sometime in 2011.
In the meantime, Murphy said, Jafza itself is striving to steer as much business as it can to companies already here in South Carolina.
“Doing business with the local community really is a priority with us,” he said. The project management team has also drafted a policy on minority participation in projects.
The future of expansion
Jafza’s future sites in the United States, Murphy said, will initially be selected by a team who will be looking at potential locations in broad strokes to determine which markets the company should be in.
Although he didn’t reveal where those potential locations might be, Murphy did state that it will be increasingly important to reach those markets from East Coast ports.
“There’s clearly been a shift in cargo from the West Coast of the United States to the East Coast, owing to labor and transportation issues out West, and the expansion of the Panama Canal is only going to solidify that trend,” he said.
Murphy also said with Dubai’s investment in the United States, East Coast ports can also expect to see a significant influx of cargo coming from nations using the Suez Canal.
“Dubai itself is the home to the biggest port in the Middle East, so again we’ll have a natural connectivity between here and there,” he said. “I suspect you’ll see a greater presence of companies in Dubai that are based here in the Southeast.”
Dan McCue is a staff writer for the Business Journal. E-mail him at dmccue@scbiznews.com.
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