City Selects Group To Turn Sunset Park Port Into Shipping Hub

SUNSET PARK, NY — The city's plan to revitalize a Sunset Park port and turn it into a major shipping hub moved one step closer this week after they chose a firm to take over the spot.

The operators of the Red Hook Container Terminal, along with Industry City, plan to sign a nearly 36-year-lease for the 64.5-acre South Brooklyn Marine Terminal to import lumber, export recycled paper and more through ships, the city announced Tuesday.

"Brooklyn has a rich history in shipping and maritime commerce, and the reactivation of the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal is key to my administration's mission of reviving our working waterfront and creating hundreds of quality local jobs," Borough President Eric Adams said in a statement.

"The sun is rising on a new day for Sunset Park, and I look forward to working with our community every step of the way as this new vision for the terminal is realized."

The revitalized port, which will be renamed to the Sustainable South Brooklyn Marine Terminal, will also have on-site workforce development site to train locals for waterfront jobs, the city said.

Operators expect more than 900,000 metric tons of materials to flow through the port when it's up and running, which they estimate would cut more than 11,000 truck trips through the borough per year.

Officials also touted the project would create about 250 jobs in the short-term with the potential for much more in the future. The agreement also bans any non-maritime uses at the port, Councilman Carols Menchaca said.

"This long-term lease for SBMT means tens of millions of dollars will be invested in Sunset Park and hundreds of high quality jobs will be created," Menchaca said in a statement. "SBMT is now poised to deliver the benefits our community has defined and to sustain economic benefits for generations to come."

In 2015, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced a plan to reactivate the Sunset Park port back into a working shipping hub, but the project was almost scrapped after Menchaca called for more community control of the site, DNAinfo reported.

The city eventually smoothed over the dispute with Menchaca — creating the Sunset Park Task Force to help with planning — and put out requests for a long-term tenant for the site in June 2015, the city said.

After the city pumped more than $115 million to renovate the site, the first cargo ship in more than a decade docked at the site in 2016, DNAinfo reported.

The terminal eventually received the legs for the giant New York Wheel project expected to take over Staten Island's waterfront, which have been in storage there since after developers fired their contractor.

Image: Shutterstock