{"id":338382,"date":"2026-05-30T00:34:28","date_gmt":"2026-05-30T00:34:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/338382\/"},"modified":"2026-05-30T00:34:28","modified_gmt":"2026-05-30T00:34:28","slug":"port-of-long-beach-continues-2-4b-buildout-as-the-bigger-ships-come-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/338382\/","title":{"rendered":"Port of Long Beach Continues $2.4B Buildout as the Bigger Ships Come In"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Port of Long Beach<\/a> continues to invest $2.4 billion over the next decade in its capital program, building out on-dock rail capacity, upgrading harbor structures, and preparing for a planned dredging effort. <\/p>\n

One of the port’s tenants is pitching in by funding a nearly $400 million effort to fill in an unused south slip to create 19 acres of new land, while building a 3,400-foot continuous wharf to host mega-container ships\u2014a massive demolition, excavation and eventually concrete paving job that takes place right in the center of shipping activities at the nation\u2019s second-largest seaport.<\/p>\n

When the Pier G south slip fill<\/a> project is complete in late 2027, the terminal will have three continuous berths totaling 3,400 ft. \u201cThat will give us better operational flexibility. It will enable us to handle simultaneously two of the largest container ships in the world, which we can’t do today with our current wharves,\u201d says Halfton Ross, chief project officer with International Transportation Service<\/a>. \u201cFilling up this slip is going to increase our capacity much more than just the physical land. It will optimize our traffic arrangement, our traffic flow.”<\/p>\n

While the project only adds about 19 acres to the port’s 256 total acres, it’s about how it affects its broader logistics, says Ross. “[That 19 acre lot] it not even 10% of additional land, but it has the potential to increase our overall terminal capacity by up to 50 percent.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ITS terminal currently handles about 1 million 20-ft equivalent unit (TEU) containers. The Port of Long Beach has said that by 2050 it will need to increase its overall capacity by 100%.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThat’s going to be difficult to do\u00a0under existing constraints,\u201d says Darren Lamberger,\u00a0former director of construction management for the port. He is now\u00a0Southern California construction management and field services leader for HDR, which leads design of the port\u2019s $1.5-billion Pier B on-dock rail facility.\u00a0\u201cOne of the ways we do that is by bringing bigger ships in. As we’ve been\u00a0growing, we’re filling these smaller slips to make larger wharves, to bring in larger ships which have much greater capacity, larger cranes, and quicker movement of cargo.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pier Infill Underway<\/p>\n

A joint venture of Griffith Co<\/a>. and The Dutra Group<\/a> won a $358-million contract in 2025 from ITS to build the Pier G Infill project, with Griffith handling landside and Dutra waterside. \u201cOriginally it came in at a higher value, but through value engineering and working closely with our customer, we were able to value engineer it down,\u201d says Ryan Aukerman, president of Griffith. \u00a0\u201cWe came in and demolished the old wharf that went around this [horseshoe-shaped] slip and that\u2019s going to allow us to fill in the water portion with rock dike, armor stone and new piles.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The demolition of 3,000 linear ft of wharf included removal and recycling of 1,500 tons of steel and 40,000 cu yd of concrete. It also included 10,342 cu yd of crushed miscellaneous base, 19,000 cu yd of asphalt, 15,000 cu yd of concrete and 28,319 cu yd of earth from landside infrastructure such as berths. Some 2.5 million cu yd of material from within the complex and from Newport Beach will help fill in the south slip.<\/p>\n

Last year, crews began installing underground facilities such as storm drains and bioretention filters, Aukerman adds. Then they began grading out backlands to put back into service while continuing to fill in the slip. \u201cAfter all the rock dike is in at the right level, we’ll bring in dirt to surcharge and let it settle for six months.\u201d<\/p>\n

The dike includes some 487,000 tons of rock, 1,792,500 cu yd of dredged fill and will use some 485,000 cu yd of material for the surcharge, with some 5.4 million linear ft of wick drains. \u201cOne of the biggest challenges is the electrical requirement for dredging,\u201d says Brian O’Sullivan, COO of The Dutra Group. \u201cWe had to build a new crane to be able to do that. We’ve got tugboats, we’ve got our full \u2018Morty\u2019 [1,054-gross-ton] barge out there with the [Lieber 8300] electric crane on it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Crews will drive some 381 piles as long as 105 ft to support the new wharf and its 560-ft extension, which will utilize 8,300 cu yd of concrete and some 3 million lb of steel.\u00a0Completion is slated for late 2027.<\/p>\n

Crews will install thousands of linear ft of various new utilities, including 75 storm drain structures and five storm treatment units. Major ones include a 72-in.-dia outfall pipe around 1,900 ft long and a 48-in.-pipe around 1,400 ft long. \u201cWe were running\u00a0both lines simultaneously so whenever we had a high tide on one side, luckily for us on the 48- inch\u00a0side it wasn’t as bad as on the a 72-inch side,\u201d says Luis Baeza, the joint venture\u2019s underground field superintendent.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Paving operations will include a section of 17-in.-thick cement-treated base, with an 11-in. section for the \u201cbacklands\u201d storage and staging area behind the wharf. \u201cThen we’ll be putting seven inches of\u00a0paving over the top\u201d of the base, says Joe Caratini, a project superintendent with Griffith.\u00a0\u201cWe’re going to have an on-site batch plant for our cement treated base. Once surcharging is complete, \u201cwe\u2019ll start spreading out our base,\u00a0and then we’ll set up a pug mill. And once they start mixing and we get our grading done,\u00a0we’ll start importing that base and bringing it up front and making our grade.\u201d The approximate dimension of the paving area is 20 acres, he adds.<\/p>\n

The team is utilizing three proprietary devices to treat water and capture runoff: PerkFilters, a three-chamber system with cartridges that remove solids, debris and pollutants; a high-flow biopod stormwater treatment system; and CDS units, a hydrodynamic separator that captures trash, debris, sediment and oil or grease from stormwater runoff using a continuous deflective separation with an integrated oil baffle, says Mercy Canul, underground division project manager. \u201cWe will be installing four different systems with 16 manholes\u201d for the biopods, she says, adding that the team is installing 10 PerkFilters and 13 CDS units.<\/p>\n

Working With Tides and Traffic<\/p>\n

The biggest challenge so far has been the unknowns,\u201d says Matthew Arroyo, Griffith project manager. \u201cOn this project that was evident when we started digging our storm drain line and we discovered an unexploded ordinance.\u201d Unexploded ordinance was found in 2025, followed by a spent shell casing this February. \u201cOnce we found the ordinance, we had to contact the proper authorities to really understand what it was and understand the impact that it could have on the job,\u201d says Arroyo. Experts have been guiding the team on protocols for dealing with the risk.<\/p>\n

Somewhat more predictable of a risk are the tides, which fluctuations affect operations such as installing pipe. The team reviews tide charts daily to adjust work activities accordingly. \u201cAs the weeks go by, you really monitor the different tide tables and you’re able to kind of plan work where you know you can do it, and you have fallback work that you can go with when you can’t,\u201d says Arroyo. Crews still have to deal with unpredictable winds, busy marine traffic, and busy terminal traffic.<\/p>\n

The team works closely with ITS on site access and devising ways to save or tweak schedules. \u201cHaving a construction site in the middle of an\u00a0operating container terminal is not ideal for any parties,\u201d says Ross. \u201cWe handle up to 3,000 container trucks a day, so we don’t need a lot of extra roadside traffic.\u00a0The [original] intention was to bring everything in waterside, but that’s also complicated, takes more time and potentially also costs more. So we worked with our\u00a0contractors on finding windows. When can they come in with the deliveries,\u00a0let’s say for example all the piles, instead of bringing them by barge, we allow them to come in on\u00a0flatbed trucks. We work with them on what time of the day it won\u2019t interfere with our operations.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGiven the heavier\u00a0equipment and the port having the right-of-way, that’s always tough, especially when you’re trying\u00a0to meet project demands,\u201d says Danny Cortez, corporate safety manager with Griffith. \u201cWe really try to coordinate those efforts out ahead of\u00a0time. One simple way is just using flaggers with two-way radio communication.\u201d<\/p>\n

Arroyo also notes one upside to working within a busy container terminal. \u00a0\u201cWe’re fortunate enough to have a project that gives us a secure jobsite with K-rail and fencing,\u201d he says. \u201c The port is a secure place where you know we don’t have to deal with some of the typical challenges of a construction site.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Port of Long Beach continues to invest $2.4 billion over the next decade in its capital program,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":338383,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[131,133,132,139552,3359,4586],"class_list":["post-338382","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news","tag-port-construction","tag-port-of-long-beach","tag-shipping"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338382","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=338382"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338382\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/338383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=338382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=338382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=338382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}