Posted on October 28, 2021
The Army Corps of Engineers will complete its dredging of Jacksonville harbor in June 2022, more than three years ahead of what had been expected.
Jaxport CEO Eric Green told the port’s board of directors on Monday morning that the $484-million project to deepen the St. Johns River to 47 feet will finish by the middle of next year.
“It’s huge,” Green told the Business Journal. “As shipping lines begin to look at their port of calls, they can start to look at Jacksonville a lot sooner. They can plan their vessel scheduling and that’s big for us.”
The Army Corps of Engineers began work on the 11-mile project in February 2018. Initially, the project was expected to finish in 2025, but that timeline has since been moved forward – first to 2023, then to late 2022 and now to June of next year. The public-private partnership was funded with monies from the port, Army Corps of Engineers, Florida Department of Transportation, City of Jacksonville as well as SSA Marine.
The 47-foot depth will make Jaxport the same depth as the Savannah harbor. The Army Corps of Engineers is currently working on a harbor deepening project in Charleston, South Carolina that will see the entrance channel dredged to 54 feet and the harbor itself 52 feet.
Robert Peek, Jaxport’s general manager for sales and marketing, said carriers typically make their route changes in the spring. Jacksonville has already won business from other East Coast ports because of its lack of harbor congestion.
“Harbor deepening is significant for the global carriers because they are increasing the size of their vessels,” Peek said. “One of the first questions they ask us is: ‘Do you have the facilities to handle our vessels?’ Providing the harbor depth is critical for us to have that conversation about bringing in that new service.”
Last month, SSA Marine Vice President of Project Engineering and Implementation Ari Steinberg told the Business Journal that because most of the cargo handled by Jaxport is imported, his company stands to benefit from larger vessels being able to traverse 11 miles inland from the mouth Atlantic Ocean and through the harbor.
“We will be able to handle more cargo,” Steinberg said at the time. “That’s really not our decision, that’s the carriers being able to bring larger ships here. It opens up the waterway to allow the bigger ships. It’s bigger ships in all directions: It’s longer, it’s wider, it’s deeper and any flavor ship you want in the world.”
Jaxport set a port record by handling 1.40 million container TEUs for the fiscal year that ended on Sept. 30. Port officials express optimism that having the harbor deepening project completed before next year’s peak season begins will allow for additional growth.
