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"Building for the future": GPA director outlines growth for port
stacy watson
Stacy Watson, director of economic and industrial development for the GPA, speaking to Liberty County Chamber Officials.

The Georgia Ports Authority is poised for more growth in the coming years – and perhaps could become the nation’s No. 2 port, a GPA official said.

Speaking to the Liberty County Chamber of Commerce Progress Through People lunch Thursday, Stacy Watson, director of economic and industrial development for the GPA, detailed the plans for the ports in the coming years.

“We’re building for the future,” Watson said. “We have lots of room to build, lots of room to grow.”

The GPA, Watson said, is spending $4.2 billion over the next 10 years in port infrastructure. The GPA owns about 450 acres across the river, where it hopes to build the Savannah Container terminal.

Ocean terminal is being converted to a 100% container facility, and the ports also expect to open the Savannah Container terminal, across the river from Ocean terminal. Dubbed the Savannah Container terminal, the facility is in the permitting phase and if approved, it will have capacity for more than 3 million containers.

Garden City terminal occupies 1,500 acres and its berthing of more than 9,000 feet, nearly two miles, is the longest such space for an east coast port.

The Garden City terminal is also the largest container facility in the Western Hemisphere, Watson declared.

“You can fit all six terminals at the New York-New Jersey facility into the footprint of the Garden City terminal,” he said.

Brunswick’s port, which handles primarily what is called ro-ro, or roll-on/roll-off, such as vehicles, and breakbulk is one of the top ports on the east coast for handling ro-ro traffic. For fiscal year 2024, it handled more than 875,000 units.

The Savannah ports handled more than 5.2 million TEUs, or twenty-foot equivalent containers, in FY24, placing it second among east coast ports and third overall in the U.S. behind Los Angeles/Long Beach and New York/New Jersey. In FY05, Savannah’s ports handled just shy of 1.8 million TEUs.

Savannah is the fastest-growing container gateway, Watson boasted, and the GPA budgets for about 4.5-5% growth on an annual basis.

“We want to continue to grow,” he said.

Population shifts, as more people move toward Sun Belt states, and manufacturing shifts have helped spur the ports’ growth, Watson pointed. Along with the Hyundai metaplant in Bryan County, there is a BMW plant in Greer, S.C., a Mercedes-Benz plant in Vance, Ala., Volkswagen’s plant in Chattanooga, Tenn., Mazda and Toyota plants in Alabama, a Michelin facility in the South Carolina upstate and a Kia plant in West Point, near LaGrange.

“Population equals cargo,” Watson said. “Population shift is a huge part of our success. And not just population – manufacturing as well.”

The impact of Hyundai’s plant near Black Creek is going to be “huge” for the ports, Watson added, and the GPA is building toward a “top-tier, world-class port for imports and exports.”

The ports also are beefing up their rail network. Rail accounts for nearly 20% of the ports’ business, and the GPA sees that total going up to 25%.

“Rail is real important to us,” he said.

Aside from the ports at Brunswick and Savannah, GPA also has inland ports, including Bainbridge, the Appalachian Regional Port in Chatsworth and the planned Blue Ridge connector near Gainesville, which will handle 200,000 units a year and provide a direct rail link to Savannah’s ports.

More rail also means getting more trucks off the road, Watson noted. Currently, at Garden City terminal, the ports can put together 10 10,000-foot trains and once Ocean terminal’s conversion is completed, that number will go up to 15 10,000-foot trains.

At Garden City, the ports can accommodate seven large vessels at once. Ocean terminal can handle three smaller ships but plans call for Ocean to handle two large ships at once at its facilities by 2028. The ports just brought in four new ship-to-shore cranes, giving Ocean eight such cranes.

Savannah Container terminal, once completed, is expected to accommodate three large vessels at once.

“In order to grow, you have to have berth capacity,” Watson said. “And you have to have equipment to work those vessels. You also have to have yard capacity.”

“We’re working to increase our berth capacity by improving the docks and working the larger ships,” Watson said.

The GPA’s yard capacity is about 105,000 containers today, up from pre-COVID-19 levels of 85,000. The GPA projection is to have space for 150,000 containers by 2028 and by 2030, with Savannah Container terminal online, that yard capacity will reach nearly 190,000, an increase of close to 80%.

By 2030, the ports at Savannah expect to handle 12 million TEUs a year, putting it past the figure New York/New Jersey has and making it second only to Los Angeles/Long Beach in the nation.

To handle bigger ships means a deeper channel, or more clearance under the Talmadge Bridge spanning the Savannah River. The Savannah Harbor Expansion Project, which deepened the channel leading to the ports from 42 feet to 47 feet, was completed in 2022 at a cost of $973 million.

Raising the bridge could cost from $150 million to $175 million. The cable-stayed bridge is 574 feet high and has a clearance under it of 185 feet.

“We’re still looking at raising that bridge,” Watson said.

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