With its newly awarded $10 million TIGER grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation, the Duluth Seaway Port Authority is preparing to embark on a new project that will markedly expand the port’s general cargo handling capacity. The Port of Palm Beach has secured $525,000 as part of the Fiscal Year 2013 Port Security Grant Program to strengthen the port’s access-control monitoring, security training and domain awareness capabilities.

Duluth Seaway Port Authority: $10 million TIGER Grant for Intermodal Project

With its newly awarded $10 million TIGER grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation, the Duluth Seaway Port Authority is preparing to embark on a new project that will markedly expand the port’s general cargo handling capacity. Specifically entailed is a major adaptive reuse and redevelopment project on Garfield Pier (Dock C&D) that will re-establish the dock's structural integrity and connect the 28-acre site to existing road access and rail infrastructure.

This redevelopment project represents a major undertaking for the Duluth Port. The total price tag is $16 million. Other funding will include $3 million from the Minnesota Port Development Assistance Program, with the balance committed by the port authority itself.

The plan consists of these basic components:

• Dock reconstruction (replacing corroded sheet piling and deteriorated wooden dock walls)
• Resurfacing the property 
• Renovating a roll-on/roll-off dock 
• Dredging adjacent waters for ship berths 
• Installing road and rail infrastructure links
• Making safety and security enhancements

Once the award is officially presented by the U.S. Department of Transportation, port authority staff will finalize the specific construction timetable. Preliminary engineering design work to stabilize and upgrade the site has been completed. "We could conceivably bid the project yet this fall and be ready to start construction next spring," said Port Authority Executive Director Adolph Ojard.  

Cargill donated Garfield Pier (Docks C&D) to the port authority in 1989. Since then, the port authority has spent upwards of $3 million to demolish the old grain elevators and prepare the site for future capital upgrades. Located across the slip from the existing Clure Public Marine Terminal, the pier is currently used for the temporary storage and staging of wind turbine components and other project cargo.

"The award represents a major investment in this region's multimodal transportation system," said Mr. Ojard. "This site represents the largest of just a handful of remaining parcels of land situated on Seaway-draft channels in this harbor. We're rehabbing the platform of what was once a grain elevator ... setting the table, so to speak, for future growth and development. Once complete, the port will have a new, competitive platform from which to address future business opportunities as they present themselves."

The Port of Palm Beach has secured $525,000 as part of the Fiscal Year 2013 Port Security Grant Program (PSGP). Projects funded under the 2013 PSGP require a 25 percent match by the port district, providing a total project investment of $656,250 to strengthen the port’s access-control monitoring, security training and domain awareness capabilities. 

"This additional funding will allow the Port of Palm Beach to continue to bolster its defenses against potential acts of terror and aggression," said Port Commission Chairman George E. Mastics. "Coupled with the $1.8 million in security funding the port received in 2011, the port is able to continually work to keep the citizens of the district safe."