Posted on June 22, 2026
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The Port of Galveston is gearing up to capitalize on Davie Defense’s recent $1 billion acquisition of the Gulf Copper repair facility and shipyard by proposing to develop 357 nearby acres it controls into a multifaceted berth that could transform Pelican Island into “our next great growth opportunity,” Port Director and CEO Rodger Rees announced Tuesday.
In his column for the port’s website, Rees called this “prime waterfront acreage,” including 100 acres directly adjoining Davie’s property, “one of the state’s few underdeveloped, large-scale deepwater port sites.” Future development opportunities for the site, he added, include building a liquid natural gas facility for bunkering (i.e. refueling) cruise and cargo ships; adding more cargo-handling acreage for “ro-ro” (roll-on/roll-off) tenants; and road improvements that would improve truck circulation at the port.
“This essential infrastructure will give the shipbuilding project critical logistics support to reduce supply-chain bottlenecks and accelerate contract delivery and jobs creation,” Rees wrote.
U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, U.S. Rep. Randy Weber (R-Texas), and Inocea Group Chairman and CEO Alex Vicefield broke ground earlier this month at Davie Defense’s conversion of its Gulf Copper facility into a shipyard building Arctic cutters for the U.S. Coast Guard
The project would cost an estimated $40 million, Rees wrote, and would be funded by pooling the port’s operating reserves with federal and state grants. Between the lines, he said the time for “interested parties” to get serious about replacing the aging Seawolf Parkway/51st Street bridge is now, and challenged them to come up with “an affordable design that includes road and rail needs.”
“As Rodger [wrote], the key is trying to figure out the funding source(s) and how we manage our cash flow to fund our next round of priorities, and to build up our cash reserves,” Galveston Wharves Board of Trustees chair Jeff Patterson told Chron Tuesday.
“We also have the opportunity of the expansion of Terminal 10 to figure out, which also plays into these funding and prioritization discussions,” he added. “As they say, these are good problems to have.”
The next Wharves Board meeting is scheduled for June 23. The board has not yet posted an agenda on its website but “we will be talking about all of this in the meeting on Tuesday,” Patterson said.
