By Andrew Held, AJOT North Atlantic Auto Distribution (NORAD) continues to make substantial investments at Quonset Point/Davisville. Mike Miranda, Owner and President of the company reports that business is much stronger this year. The company provides an array of services to Subaru, VW, Audi and Bentley vehicles that include accessorizing, re-finishing and other technical work at the facility. NORAD employs specially trained staff to handle Bentleys, which start at 178K retail. In addition to unloading vehicles from Europe and Mexico, NORAD also offloads Subaru’s transported from a manufacturing plant in Indiana and reloads them onto auto-racks for shipment to dealers in the Northeast. In addition to these makes, “we are talking to 2-3 other manufacturers that we cannot disclose.” To handle the increased volumes, NORAD recently expanded their operation by 50 acres to a total of 170 and is about to groundbreak on a project to expand their on-site rail facility that connects with the P&W railroad. The Port of Davisville was recently reported by the PIERS service to be the 5th largest automobile port in the U.S. The Quonset Development Corporation (QDC) has designated the facility and port as a “center for renewable energy”. Several “green” firms have recently relocated to the port. These include the company, Deepwater Wind, which assembles towers and builds and operates wind farms. Deepwater Wind plans to build several wind farms in southern New England and New Jersey over the next several years. Deepwater Wind is currently studying the feasibility of an offshore farm in the vicinity of Block Island. To help handle project cargos, the QDC recently applied for and received stimulus monies to install a crane to offload parts from ocean vessels. Many of the parts are too large and heavy to transit area bridges. Among other projects, QDC is rebuilding the ports main access road to minimize interface with the Port’s growing network of rail lines and improve truck movement in the facility.