JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – New, giant container cranes for Jacksonville Port Authority arrived Friday morning at the Dames Point Marine Terminal.
The three 220-foot-tall cranes that can lift up to 65 tons were carried on board a special vessel which brought them 17,000 miles from Shanghai, China, where they were built.
JaxPort invested $37.6 million in the cranes, which are designed to move cargo on and off larger ships calling on through both the Panama and Suez canals. The newly expanded Panama Canal has been boosting business for the shipment of goods from Asia to the East Coast of the United States.
The Florida Department of Transportation assisted with a $15 million grant.
"This is a big piece of the infrastructure that is necessary to accommodate the bigger ships that are coming," said Vincent Cameron, president of International Longshoreman's Association Local 1408. "They expanded the locks and made for the larger ships coming from Asia, instead of going to the West Coast, come to the East Coast."
The cranes will be operational later this year. Cameron said these cranes will put more people to work.
"Jacksonville is a port city. It has evolved with the port as part of the backbone. Every job in the city to some degree, or let's say 80 percent of the jobs in this city, are connected with the port. So it is intimately intertwined in the infrastructure of Jacksonville," Cameron said.
JaxPort's long-term strategic plan calls calls for a total of 10 of the new, 100-gauge cranes.