Dive Brief:
- The Broward County Board of County Commissioners has given its approval for a $437 million expansion of Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale, FL, according to the South Florida Business Journal.
- The Southport Turning Notch Expansion (STNE) will include new berths to accommodate larger cargo ships, rails that can handle post-Panamax cranes and a near tripling of deepwater turnaround space. The project will also increase mangrove and wetland areas in a conservation easement.
- Moss/Kiewit — a joint venture between Moss & Associates and Kiewit Infrastructure South Co. — will serve as general contractor for the project.
Dive Insight:
This is the biggest capital project in the history of the port, which saw more than $163 million in revenue last year and processed more than 1 million 20-foot shipping containers.
Ports across the U.S. have either made or are in the process of making the changes necessary to support the larger post-Panamax ships. The Bayonne Bridge in New Jersey is underway with a $1.6 billion renovation and should be able to accommodate the bigger vessels in July, giving them access to the nearby port, which has some of the largest container terminals in the region. Crews raised the bridge, increasing clearance from 151 feet to 215 feet.
After revising the schedule, the Skanska Koch/Kiewit joint venture said the raising of the bridge would not be complete until the end of this year, but crews beat that estimate by six months.
The bridge was originally scheduled for completion in 2016 to coincide with the opening of the Panama Canal expansion, but crews fell behind. The JV said delays were a result of extreme winter weather conditions in 2014 and 2015, staging changes necessary to reduce the impact of construction on commuters and the implementation of new safety measures to enable the flow of traffic during construction.
The entire Bayonne Bridge renovation is scheduled for completion in 2019.
