A $31 million agricultural product export facility is coming to Jones Island, reports the Milwaukee Business Journal.
The facility, to be located on 3.8 acres on the west side of the island, is being funded partly by a $15.9 federal grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation's maritime administration.
Construction of the facility is expected to begin in August 2021 with completion around June 2023.
According to a release from the DeLong Co., Inc., the company is leasing a parcel of property on Jones Island at the Port Milwaukee to develop an intermodal bulk vessel agricultural commodity transload facility at the Port.
The property in the Port is adjacent to a waterway and mooring that is capable of harboring a covered bulk blue water material cargo vessel with sufficient capacity to load agricultural products and deliver them worldwide.
The products to be transloaded are anticipated to be primarily Dry Distillers Grain with Solubles (DDGS), soybeans, and, potentially, corn and grain. The Port is a vital deep draft international commercial harbor with several ship terminals, deep draft docking space, and storage and/or transload facilities for cargo.
Redevelopment of the property includes the environmentally appropriate demolition of an existing out-of-date structure and construction of an upgraded mooring infrastructure, if required. A fabric building will be erected in place of the existing structure. The transload facilities will include rail and truck gravity dump hoppers connected to a conveyance system to transport the material into the fabric building.
Inside the fabric building, a reclaim system will be installed to take stored material and convey it for bulk loading into the covered bulk material cargo vessel. Vertical storage structures will also be added to handle soybeans and grain.
Funds requested for this project will be used for the demolition of the existing out-of-date structure, the construction of the intermodal bulk vessel transload facility and the vertical storage structures.
The project will include site investigations, permitting, site work, a shiploader as shown above, other equipment for bulk loading and conveyance, and construction phase engineering.
