Griff Lynch, executive director of the Georgia Ports Authority, announced the acquisition of 145 contiguous acres to the Port of Savannah, or more than 1 million twenty-foot equivalent container units in annual capacity.
Mr. Lynch also announced that Garden City Terminal dock construction had been completed, and can now serve three 14,000-TEU vessels, and up to eight vessels at the same time.
The improved dock and additional container yard space are part of a larger blueprint to increase the GPA’s capacity to over 9 million TEUs by 2030. By 2023, the GPA will add an extra berth, for a total of four big ship vessel slots.
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In addition, to improve service, Savannah’s Ocean Terminal will be partially converted to handle containers. Renovations at Ocean Terminal will include a new truck gate, upgraded container yards and rubber-tired gantry cranes for container operations.
Construction is currently under way on the upgrades. Phase I of the Ocean Terminal container yard is expected to be finalized by the end of 2020.
Mr. Lynch also presented plans for the new Savannah Container Terminal, an approximately 200-acre facility to be built on Hutchinson Island. The new facility will have a capacity of 2.5 million TEUs when fully developed. Phase I is projected to come online in 2025.
More, GPA’s Y.E.S (Youth learning Equipment and Safety) program is expanded, in which high school graduates are hired and trained for equipment operator careers. GPA hopes to begin hiring 50 recent graduates per year to help meet staffing needs.
Mr. Lynch also unveiled a new program, called GET SET (Sustainability, Efficiency, Technology). The GET SET program is a competitive juried contest for college students in Georgia, in which they will be challenged to put forth innovative solutions to issues faced by the maritime logistics community. Students or student teams submitting winning entries will receive a cash prize totaling $25,000.
The Authority will be working with universities across the state to include the GET SET program into their curricula over the next year, with the first prize being awarded in the summer of 2021.
