Abilene Motor Express President Alan Jones at AMX Leasing’s future site off I-95. (Mike Platania photo)
As Alan Jones sees it, the recent boom in the industrial warehouse development has come with an unintended byproduct: There’s not enough room on warehouse sites to park trailers when they’re not needed.
“People are just throwing up these massive warehouses and putting them on great leases as soon as they’re available,” said Jones, who’s president of Chester-based trucking firm Abilene Motor Express. “All those facilities are great, but they require so many more tractor-trailers to move around.”
Jones said demand for additional trailers skyrockets during the peak delivery season from October through December, but when that increased demand dies down there’s nowhere for the empty containers to go.
“For the other nine months of the year they sit idle,” he said. “Nobody ever thinks about, ‘Well where do they sit?’ They’re a physical asset that has to have somewhere to sit. None of these warehouses have enough property to facilitate that.”
So Jones is opening a new local location for AMX Leasing, a subsidiary of Abilene Motor Express that offers container storage lots with leasable spots.
He’s working to convert a roughly 14-acre parcel at 2401 Elliham Ave. in Chesterfield into an AMX lot with room to house around 500 trailers.
That will add to AMX’s original lot, which sits on part of Abilene’s headquarters property a few miles down the road at 1700 Willis Road and can hold 600 trailers.
Located just south of Chippenham Parkway and adjacent to Interstate 95, the Elliham site is a formerly wooded parcel that Jones said is uniquely suited for a use like what AMX has in store.
The company’s operations don’t include any buildings and are largely a parking lot with security systems. Jones said the land has limited utility infrastructure and also required combing it for Civil War relics due to its proximity to Drewry’s Bluff, a historic site on the other side of I-95 overlooking the James River.
The company’s Chester headquarters. (Courtesy of Abilene Motor Express)
“Nobody really could figure out what to do with (the Elliham land),” Jones said. “There’s very limited use for the land, other than something like the concept I’ve laid out. It was prohibitive for a lot of people, but it’s perfect for us.”
AMX is leasing the property from Greenspring Realty Partners, the same Maryland-based firm that recently bought the former home of Richmond Dragway in Sandston. Greenspring bought the Elliham Avenue land for $3 million in 2021.
Jones said clients that lease space from AMX Leasing run the gamut in size — everything from independent truckers who need somewhere to keep their rigs, up to large companies like Lowe’s and Amazon.
The layout of the lot will be similar to that of truck stops, where each truck has its own designated spot to pull into, except AMX Leasing’s lot will allow for trailers to be fit in more tightly.
Jones said the facility is set to be completed soon, and that he’s working on opening AMX Leasing facilities in new markets like Charleston, South Carolina and Savannah, Georgia. Jones said he’s already leased space for AMX Leasing in Savannah and hopes to eventually bring it to other markets where Abilene operates including West Memphis, Arkansas, Wytheville, Virginia and Oklahoma City.
Jones’ uncles Keith and Kolen Jones founded Abilene in 1986 and started AMX Leasing in 2006. They sold the company to publicly-traded Knight-Swift Transportation Holdings Inc. out of Phoenix in 2018, and Alan stayed on to run the day-to-day operations of the company.
Abilene has 450 trucks in its fleet, and Jones said they employ a similar number of drivers. It has about 100 employees as support staff, giving it a headcount of about 550.
Some of the aforementioned new industrial projects in the works for Richmond include Ashley Capital’s planned 584,000-square-foot project in Varina, Hillwood Enterprises’ 2.6-million-square-foot complex near Richmond Raceway that’ll be anchored by Amazon, and Hourigan’s Deepwater Industrial Park, which will add 1.2 million square feet in the Southside.
Abilene Motor Express President Alan Jones at AMX Leasing’s future site off I-95. (Mike Platania photo)
As Alan Jones sees it, the recent boom in the industrial warehouse development has come with an unintended byproduct: There’s not enough room on warehouse sites to park trailers when they’re not needed.
“People are just throwing up these massive warehouses and putting them on great leases as soon as they’re available,” said Jones, who’s president of Chester-based trucking firm Abilene Motor Express. “All those facilities are great, but they require so many more tractor-trailers to move around.”
Jones said demand for additional trailers skyrockets during the peak delivery season from October through December, but when that increased demand dies down there’s nowhere for the empty containers to go.
“For the other nine months of the year they sit idle,” he said. “Nobody ever thinks about, ‘Well where do they sit?’ They’re a physical asset that has to have somewhere to sit. None of these warehouses have enough property to facilitate that.”
So Jones is opening a new local location for AMX Leasing, a subsidiary of Abilene Motor Express that offers container storage lots with leasable spots.
He’s working to convert a roughly 14-acre parcel at 2401 Elliham Ave. in Chesterfield into an AMX lot with room to house around 500 trailers.
That will add to AMX’s original lot, which sits on part of Abilene’s headquarters property a few miles down the road at 1700 Willis Road and can hold 600 trailers.
Located just south of Chippenham Parkway and adjacent to Interstate 95, the Elliham site is a formerly wooded parcel that Jones said is uniquely suited for a use like what AMX has in store.
The company’s operations don’t include any buildings and are largely a parking lot with security systems. Jones said the land has limited utility infrastructure and also required combing it for Civil War relics due to its proximity to Drewry’s Bluff, a historic site on the other side of I-95 overlooking the James River.
The company’s Chester headquarters. (Courtesy of Abilene Motor Express)
“Nobody really could figure out what to do with (the Elliham land),” Jones said. “There’s very limited use for the land, other than something like the concept I’ve laid out. It was prohibitive for a lot of people, but it’s perfect for us.”
AMX is leasing the property from Greenspring Realty Partners, the same Maryland-based firm that recently bought the former home of Richmond Dragway in Sandston. Greenspring bought the Elliham Avenue land for $3 million in 2021.
Jones said clients that lease space from AMX Leasing run the gamut in size — everything from independent truckers who need somewhere to keep their rigs, up to large companies like Lowe’s and Amazon.
The layout of the lot will be similar to that of truck stops, where each truck has its own designated spot to pull into, except AMX Leasing’s lot will allow for trailers to be fit in more tightly.
Jones said the facility is set to be completed soon, and that he’s working on opening AMX Leasing facilities in new markets like Charleston, South Carolina and Savannah, Georgia. Jones said he’s already leased space for AMX Leasing in Savannah and hopes to eventually bring it to other markets where Abilene operates including West Memphis, Arkansas, Wytheville, Virginia and Oklahoma City.
Jones’ uncles Keith and Kolen Jones founded Abilene in 1986 and started AMX Leasing in 2006. They sold the company to publicly-traded Knight-Swift Transportation Holdings Inc. out of Phoenix in 2018, and Alan stayed on to run the day-to-day operations of the company.
Abilene has 450 trucks in its fleet, and Jones said they employ a similar number of drivers. It has about 100 employees as support staff, giving it a headcount of about 550.
Some of the aforementioned new industrial projects in the works for Richmond include Ashley Capital’s planned 584,000-square-foot project in Varina, Hillwood Enterprises’ 2.6-million-square-foot complex near Richmond Raceway that’ll be anchored by Amazon, and Hourigan’s Deepwater Industrial Park, which will add 1.2 million square feet in the Southside.