The only sea cargo container terminal serving the Chicago market will open this year at the Port of Indiana-Burns Harbor in Portage.
It’s part of a $100 million expansion of the port. “We haven’t seen that kind of investment in the port since it opened in 1970,” Indiana Ports Commission CEO Jody Peacock said at Wednesday’s Innovate Northwest Indiana luncheon.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection gave its approval for the container terminal in 2024.
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“We are planning a trial shipment by the end of this year to be our first-ever export,” he said.
“Shipping containers handle 60% of world trade across oceans,” Peacock said.
Standardizing the size of shipping containers allows ships to be easily loaded and unloaded and for the containers to be transferred to rail cars and semitrucks at intermodal facilities.
The standard container size today is 20 feet long, 8 feet wide and 9 feet tall, translated as TEU, for 20-foot equivalent container unit, in shipping lingo.
The Port of Los Angeles, the largest in the United States, handles about 10 million TEU a year, Peacock said.
Chicago, the nation’s largest railroad hub, handles about 16 million TEUs annually, he said.
“There is no container ocean terminal in Chicago, so Indiana is developing the only ocean-served container terminal in the largest container market in the country,” Peacock said.
The terminal will be capable of about 15 lifts per hour, according to the Ports of Indiana website.
The Portage port handles an average of 321 barges and 81 ships a year, along with 350,000 trucks and 10,000 rail cars. It serves oceangoing vessels through the St. Lawrence Seaway.
The container terminal will be for cargo containers what a direct flight is for airline passengers, Peacock said. “This becomes the direct flight for Indiana businesses to move containers in and out of Northwest Indiana.”
“We think in Europe, for example, it’s a 26-day trip to get a container into this market. We think we can take 10 days off of that,” Peacock said.
“It’s really, a big benefit for logistics in Northwest Indiana, an economic development,” he said. “If we’re going to be a real port, real economy, real region that’s in world trade, we need to handle the largest form of cargo that’s out there.”
Portage’s port is the 25th largest in the nation. Its economic impact on the region is estimated at $4.6 billion, supporting 28,400 jobs, according to the Ports of Indiana website.
Bill Hana, executive director of the Dean and Barbara White Family Foundation and former head of the Northwest Indiana Regional Development Authority, praised the development.
“To see them progress during this time period, it’s just another example of the highest and best use for our assets,” he said.
A lot of what the RDA has been involved in for 20 years is bringing those markets together, he said.
Having the container facility means thinking about how it will affect Gary/Chicago International Airport and other partners involved in moving freight in and out of the region, he said.
“That’s been the winning combination over the last few years. The state gets involved, we talk to everybody in this room, we’re pulling the same direction,” Hanna said. “We create something that didn’t exist before.”
Doug Ross is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.