Hanjin board approves port lease

Colombo: The board of directors of South Korea-based Hanjin Shipping Co. Ltd. approved a contract to lease an 88-acre, $300 million shipping container terminal in Jacksonville for 30 years.

The Jacksonville Port Authority board approved the same contract Nov. 3, and its only remaining detail is a Dec. 10 formal signing by both parties in Jacksonville.

The deal represents a year of negotiations, Jacksonville Port Authority Executive Director Rick Ferrin said. Work began in October 2007, when Hanjin and port officials signed a memorandum of understanding envisioning a 170-acre terminal that could handle 1 million cargo containers annually. The finalized deal has the Port Authority constructing an 88-acre facility, with capacity for 800,000 containers a year, on port-owned land at the Dames Point Marine Terminal.

Hanjin will make lease payments including debt service the port incurs for building and equipping the terminal, Ferrin said. Port officials plan to get funds from revenue bonds and loans from the Federal Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act and Florida's State Infrastructure Bank, Ferrin said.

The terminal is expected to create more than 5,600 new jobs, the port announced.

'This kind of investment helps defy statistics and national trends in job growth,' Jacksonville Mayor John Peyton said. 'This puts us on path to be the third-largest port on the U.S. East Coast [in volume].'

Ferrin projects the facility's opening in late 2011. Jacksonville.com