The US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) has presented JAXPORT with a $35 million refund for unused prepayments from the recently completed Jacksonville Harbor Deepening project.
JAXPORT is actively working with the city of Jacksonville and the state of Florida, which both contributed funding towards the project, to determine its share of the refund amount as outlined in the project agreements.
Completed in May 2022, the project deepened 11 miles of the federal shipping channel to 47 feet from its previous depth of 40 feet, allowing bigger ships to call JAXPORT and existing ships calling Jacksonville to carry more cargo on board.
A total of $420 million was contributed upfront toward the project’s construction, and its original estimated cost was $484 million.
The $35 million refund results from project savings due to dredging provider bids coming in lower than initially forecasted, JAXPORT reported.
Additionally, securing funding on schedule enabled all three phases to be completed, allowing the project to finish ahead of schedule.
The federal government funded half of the project’s total cost and is receiving a separate refund from the $35 million presented to JAXPORT this week.
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“From the beginning, we said we would be good stewards of the public dollars entrusted to us by working to keep costs down and completing the project as efficiently as possible. This refund is a direct result of those efforts,” said JAXPORT CEO Eric Green.
“We accomplished our goal by keeping the funding on schedule, thanks to the support of our federal, state, and local partners, as well as the dedication and commitment of the US Army Corps of Engineers, who oversaw the project, and the dredging providers who completed the work,” Green added.
More recently, JAXPORT secured complete funding for a vital project to raise the Fulton Cut Crossing powerlines near Blount Island Marine Terminal.
