Inexperienced means go, and the Port of New Orleans is awaiting the U.S. Military Corps of Engineers’ inexperienced mild to formally start building on the Louisiana Worldwide Terminal (LIT), a generational challenge designed to increase Port NOLA’s international commerce capability and safe its long-term competitiveness.

In summer time 2025, Port NOLA accomplished LIT’s quite a few environmental analyses and submitted its federal allow software. The submission got here after practically 4 years of environmental, financial, site visitors, and neighborhood research, together with practically 50 assessments costing greater than $2 million. The Corps is now weighing whether or not to problem a Discovering of No Important Influence, permitting building to proceed, or require an Environmental Influence Assertion, delaying the challenge till mitigation measures are resolved.

“We’ve got all palms on deck to maneuver the allow alongside as effectively and rapidly as doable, and we’re appreciative of the Corps for staying clear by means of each step of the method,” mentioned Beth Ann Department, Port NOLA President and CEO. “Given our conversations, we’re cautiously optimistic that by spring, we could have our allow. However we additionally perceive that we don’t management the timing, and we’ll proceed to work with the Corps on any questions they might have.”

Port NOLA is developing the Louisiana Worldwide Terminal on roughly 420 of the 1,100 acres of property it owns in Violet in St. Bernard Parish. The LIT would remove air-draft restrictions that restrict the scale of vessels that at present name on Port NOLA and allow the Port to serve the biggest container vessels that traverse the Panama Canal locks, dramatically rising Louisiana’s import and export capability whereas additionally fostering strategic inland development. Port NOLA is a deep-draft port positioned on the Mississippi River through the Gulf of Mexico with entry to 30-plus main hubs through 14,500 miles of waterways, 6 Class I railroads and interstate highways.

Department mentioned the LIT will elevate Port NOLA’s international competitiveness, giving shippers and clients a premier choice within the Gulf with unmatched entry to inland markets. Designed as a real international gateway and a direct connection to America’s heartland, the challenge will drive commerce development, appeal to new trade funding, and help long-term financial prosperity, she mentioned.

LIT is predicted to generate 32,000 new jobs, in addition to greater than $1 billion in complete new state and native tax income by 2050. Greater than a terminal, the LIT is a strategic asset that positions Louisiana to steer in an more and more aggressive worldwide market, mentioned Department.

As soon as the allow is issued, Chris Gilmore, Port NOLA Chief Engineering Officer, mentioned the primary six to 9 months would deal with awarding the development contracts and starting website work, akin to demolition, mobilizing gear, and pre-ordering supplies. Early challenge work would additionally embrace putting in a pump station to guard neighborhood drainage. When full, the terminal is anticipated to deal with 2 million TEUs (Twenty-Foot Equal Items) yearly.

One key change within the LIT design from final 12 months to this 12 months was changing the initially deliberate computerized stacking cranes with rubber-tyred gantry cranes (RTGs) – cell, wheeled cranes important for effectively stacking and shifting delivery containers with out mounted rails. “They considerably enhance terminal effectivity, scale back turnaround occasions, and provides us the pliability to fulfill right this moment’s trendy calls for of worldwide commerce,” Gilmore mentioned.

One other important part of the LIT is the St. Bernard Transportation Hall, a roadway that can join LIT with I-510, a north-south spur that results in I-10. The hall will enable freight vehicles to bypass native roads, decreasing congestion and offering a safer, extra environment friendly route for port site visitors. The hall can even function a hurricane evacuation route for residents dwelling within the decrease portion of St. Bernard Parish. In October 2025, Port NOLA and the Louisiana DOTD signed a cooperative settlement to start this important challenge. “We’re not solely constructing world-class freight infrastructure but in addition delivering important neighborhood advantages, together with safer roadways and a dependable evacuation route,” Department mentioned.

The LIT can be setting sustainability benchmarks. In September 2025, the LIT turned the primary new container terminal within the U.S. and the primary challenge in Louisiana to register with the Envision Sustainable Infrastructure Framework. “Registering with Envision ensures we construct the terminal sustainably, responsibly, and with sturdy neighborhood engagement,” mentioned Gilmore. “It units a brand new commonplace for infrastructure that helps international commerce whereas defending the atmosphere.”

Neighborhood engagement has been central to the LIT course of, mentioned Department, as Port NOLA has labored with close by neighborhoods since 2021 and created two Neighborhood Advisory Councils that proceed to carry routine neighborhood and stakeholder conferences. “My state of mind is that neighborhood engagement at all times makes you, and the challenge, higher,” Department mentioned. “I make it some extent to spend time with everybody – these with each optimistic and significant suggestions – to make sure we ship the very best challenge for St. Bernard Parish, New Orleans, and Louisiana.”

The LIT shall be constructed by means of a public-private partnership between Port NOLA, the State of Louisiana, New Jersey-based Ports America (certainly one of North America’s largest marine terminal operators), and Geneva, Switzerland-based Mediterranean Transport Firm, by means of its terminal improvement and funding arm Terminal Funding Restricted (TiL).

Greater than $800 million has been dedicated by the non-public companions, whereas federal and state funding have totaled a whole lot of tens of millions. Department mentioned Port NOLA is reassessing the challenge’s authentic $1.8 billion estimate, which may rise because of permit-required mitigation measures and better building labor and materials prices.

“As soon as the allow is finalized, we will full worth engineering and reassess challenge prices with non-public companions,” she mentioned. “Rising labor, materials, and mitigation prices could push the estimate above $1.8 billion, however the ultimate determine is just not but recognized.”