Charleston port agency OKs land deal for dredging project
David Wren — The Post and Courier
The State Ports Authority's board of directors on Wednesday approved a land deal tied to the maritime agency's plan to dredge Charleston Harbor to 52 feet.
The authority plans to buy 46 acres on Daniel Island from the city of Charleston for $1.5 million. The City Council gave initial approval to the land sale on Tuesday.
The property will be used to store dredge materials from the $529 million harbor deepening project, which is expected to begin this fall. It is adjacent to land the SPA already owns that is used to store materials from dredging.
The Charleston Harbor dredging project will give the Port of Charleston the deepest navigation channel on the East Coast and is expected to take between 40 and 76 months, depending on funding, dredge availability, weather and other factors.
The Army Corps of Engineers — which is overseeing the dredging — has received bids for the project's first phase, with Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Co. submitting the lowest bid at $47.2 million. The Army Corps still must verify whether the bid is acceptable before awarding the contract, which is expected to happen next month.
The SPA and state and federal governments are spending about $2 billion on improvements for the big container ships that are calling more often on the Port of Charleston. In addition to harbor deepening, the authority is building a new container terminal and inland port in Dillon and Palmetto Railways is building a facility where shipping containers will be transferred between trucks and rail cars.
