Port of Savannah Gets Army Corps Permit for New 3.5M TEU Container Terminal

Georgia Port Authority has secured the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' approval for a massive new container terminal at the Port of Savannah, completing a three-year-long review process.

The new terminal will be built on Hutchison Island on 350 acres, and will have a capacity of 3.5 million TEU. The extra room will allow Savannah to continue a decade-long growth boom, which started with the inauguration of the New Panama Canal and "all-water" routes from Asia to the U.S. East Coast back in 2016.

At present, the port has a nameplate capacity of about 7.75 million TEU. It is also augmenting the Ocean Terminal, spending about $1.6 billion to increase its capacity from 200,000 TEU today to about 1.75 million TEU in 2028.

The port authority, the state and the Corps of Engineers are working on additional projects to improve the harbor for larger vessel traffic and build out the shoreside infrastructure for intermodal transport. The work includes a large-scale dredging project for Savannah Harbor.

The progress on permitting for the new terminal will be a capstone for the tenure of longtime CEO Griff Lynch, who has been at the helm of the Georgia Port Authority since 2011. Over the period, Savannah's container volume has nearly doubled, and GPA's overall revenues have more than tripled.

"We have been blessed with talented, dedicated people at GPA and with business partners who defined our service levels, enabling our customers to succeed and grow. I’m proud of our people, thankful for our customers and confident in the port and inland infrastructure we’ve built. We’re never done growing," said Lynch in a statement.