N.Y.-N.J. Port Authority acquires lease, plans container terminal
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey said Thursday it has bought out the lease of Northeast Auto Terminal (NEAT) and plans to use the 119 acres to build a new container terminal.
The property is in Bayonne and Jersey City, N.J., and comprises two parcels totaling 119 acres — 75 acres on the Port Jersey Channel, which the port authority plans to dredge to 50 feet by 2012, and another parcel next to the Greenville railyard.
Port officials said they did not know how quickly the facility will be turned into a container terminal or who would run it. NEAT’s lease will expire in November. Customers include Mazda and BMW, which has a processing center nearby.
Port Commerce Director Richard M. Larrabee said a rule of thumb is that each existing acre of terminal space in the port can handle about 5,000 containers, so the terminal might handle around 375,000 boxes. But, he noted a new company might want to use rail-mounted yard cranes that could substantially ramp up capacity.
In addition to deep water, the new terminal, like Global Marine Terminal, could have a major advantage over the biggest container facilities in the port. That’s because it would be reachable by ships without having to sail beneath the Bayonne Bridge. Air draft restrictions created by the 77-year-old span is an impediment to very large containers calling at other marine terminals in Newark and Elizabeth, N.J., and Staten Island.
The agency paid $60 million to acquire the lease on the land, which is adjacent to the privately owned Global Marine Terminal. By having two separate users of the channel, the State of New Jersey will avoid having to contribute $3 million per year, or a total of $150 million over the next 50 years, to the dredging of the channel and the federal government will pay the difference. ' Chris Dupin