Phase One Work Begins on Major Long Beach Port Terminal Project

The Port of Long Beach has kicked off one of the first major construction components of its massive $750 million Middle Harbor Redevelopment Project.

The ten-year Middle Harbor project is composed of roughly 30 individual construction projects that will redevelop and combine the port's existing piers E, D, and F into a single contiguous 342-acre megaterminal with more than double the capacity (and half the generated emissions) of the two former terminals.

Seattle-based contractor Manson-Connolly, who was awarded the $154 million contract for Phase I, Stage 1 of the Middle Harbor project in February, began staging equipment for work on Pier E earlier this month. Demolition work on the Pier E berth E-24 has now begun. In addition, Manson-Connolly has started construction of a containment dike across Pier E's Slip 1 in preparation for future work that will fill in the slip with landfill and eventually turn the slip-area into terminal space. Excavation and dredging work to widen the nearby Slip 3 is also preparing to move forward, as is work on a much smaller landfill project at the tip of Pier E.

Work on the Pier E component of Phase I is expected to be complete in the first quarter of 2013. A second phase goes out to bid this July.

A roughly $13 million subcontract for the Manson-Connolly Phase I contract will also see sub-contractor Dynalectric install a dock electrification system and the landside power grid infrastructure for the Middle Harbor project so that power can be provided to ships, cranes, and area lighting. The subcontract calls for Dynalectric to excavate and install 260,000 feet of underground concrete encased conduit, underground pre-cast pull boxes, pre-cast vaults, pre-cast manholes, and a pre-cast tunnel vault.

Additionally, Dynalectic will install a main terminal substation and a ship-to-shore substation.

Ship-to-shore power systems allow vessel crews to turn of their auxiliary diesel engines while at berth and draw maintenance power for the vessels from the landside power grid, thereby cutting a large percentage of the diesel emissions generated during each call.

The Middle Harbor project represents one of the largest constructions efforts in the port's decade-long $4 billion capital investment program that began in earnest last year.