Around the world in recent years, intermodal facilities have been built in large numbers and shining grandeur. China is catching up with the trend but facing obstacles and learning curves.

On one of such projects in Changchun’s Northeast Asia International Logistics Park, SAAN’s planners proposed a concept of “logistics plus” as a way to maximize profit, expand industry reach, and promote more business opportunities for the park’s future tenants. These expanded scopes include warehousing, processing, packaging, manufacturing, forwarding, exhibit and commerce, retail-wholesale hybrid, distribution, express delivery, cold chain, urban farming, etc.

In the center of this park sits a sizeable intermodal hub facility which will model after successful companies like JB Hunt, XPO in the USA, and Kuehne+Nagel in Europe. The hub has a dedicated railway line with the nearby China Railway’s cargo depot to the north of the site. Two pairs of docks are planned, each with two sets of lifts with a capacity of 600,000 annual TEUs, which will be increased to 1 million TEUs when fully equipped. In addition, vast areas of onsite container storage and up to eight dedicated warehouses totaling more than 300,000 SM of building area are planned inside the logistics park.