ENR California has chosen the Port of Long Beach as the 2024 Owner of the Year. 

The 112-year-old seaport sees more than 2,000 vessel calls each year. The 90 million metric tons of cargo it handles generates approximately $200 billion per year in trade. The Port of Long Beach is one of the few U.S. ports that can welcome today’s largest vessels, serving 175 shipping lines with connections to 217 seaports around the world.

With a history of undertaking major projects and seeing them through successfully as well as an ambitious slate of big-ticket projects needed to prepare for the future have won the Port this year’s Owner of the Year honor.

In order to keep up with the increased demand for shipping on the West Coast, the port has undertaken a host of capital projects over the past decade. These include the $1.5-billion Gerald Desmond Bridge that was completed in 2020, the $1.5-billion Middle Harbor Terminal Redevelopment Project marked full completion in 2021 after 10 years of construction to create the Long Beach Container Terminal and a $170-million Deep Draft Navigation Channel Deepening Project.

The major project at the moment is the Pier B On-Dock Rail Support Facility: A $1.6-billion expansion of an existing rail yard will greatly enhance the Port’s ability to build longer trains with greater frequency. In planning and design stations for several years, the program is due to begin construction in summer 2024. On-dock rail is when locomotive haul containers directly to and from container terminals without a truck trip.

You can read more about the Port in the April issue of ENR California & Northwest.