$50 Million Albany Port Expansion Project to Start this Year

By Brian Nearing

Albany Times Union

‍

$50 million, four-year upgrade at the Port of Albany should start this summer to help the facility handle more and heavier cargo, including heavy generator exports from General Electric in Schenectady. Plans call for a new 45,000-square-foot warehouse, along with a roll-on/roll-off ramp to accommodate movement of generators, which are shipped to the port on barges from Schenectady along the Erie Canal, said Port General Manager Richard Hendrick.

Other plans include rebuilding 840 feet of wharves and an aging 58,000-square-foot warehouse so its floor can sustain heavier cargoes, Hendrick said.

The projects are being paid for by a variety of state and federal grants totaling about $42 million, as well as another $8 million in funds from the port, he said. Construction work should start this summer and could last about four years.

U.S. Sen. Charles E. Schumer helped the port obtain an $18 million federal grant from the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery program that is paying for the new warehouse and roll-on/roll-off ramp.

In 2015, 60 percent of the international cargo handled at the port consisted of such heavy-lift cargo from companies that included not only GE and Siemens, but Dresser-Rand, Bechtel and Iberdrola.

GE Power exports 90 percent of the generating equipment produced at its Schenectady factory.

Last week, the state Department of Environmental Conservation found that the expansion project will have no significant adverse impact on the environment.