As Moffatt & Nichol turns 80, we take a look back at some of our most iconic projects over the past eight decades.
Starting from the kitchen table of the Nichol family home in 1945, Long Beach has not only been Moffatt & Nichol’s headquarters since then, but it’s also home to some of our greatest projects across our ports, water, commercial, and transportation practices.
From early harbor deepening and wharf design in the 1950s, to decades of container terminal development, seismic upgrades and rail improvements, to current efforts in automation and sustainability, we’ve helped shape the Port of Long Beach through decades of growth and innovation.
Today, we showcase the Middle Harbor Redevelopment Project, at the Port of Long Beach, California, completed just four years ago.
This innovative project combined two aging shipping terminals into one of the world’s most advanced and greenest container terminals. The terminal has an annual capacity to handle 3.3 million twenty-foot equivalent units and utilizes electrified equipment that reduces terminal emissions by 50 percent.
This program was 12 years in the making and it is the essence of our ports practice: collaboration and teamwork from the get-go, global excellence in port planning and optimization, and innovation in driving automation, digitalization and sustainability.
From conception to execution, we work with port authorities and terminal operators globally to bring our deep bench of experience to projects.
🎥 Today we’re revisiting this remarkable project, which exemplifies our commitment to excellence and demonstrates the positive impact we aim to create.
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Which container terminal, commonly referred to as the Middle Harbor Redevelopment Project, has been 12 years in the making. It is currently the most significant maritime project in North America. And not only is it the most technologically advanced container terminal in North America, it is the cleanest container terminal on the planet and we're proud of that. Moffitt Nickels been part of the project from day one. The master planning of the terminal, laying it out, looking at at the modes of operation, the infrastructure required to support that operation. We thought it would be a lot of synergy if we partnered with Moffitt and Nickel as both a company that could help us through the technology, the design of the facility, work with us as we went around the world looking at existing and emerging technologies, the best designs of various modern terminals that have popped up through Europe and had been operating for years already. They had a really deep bench of talent both locally and abroad. They have the expertise, they had the experience and we are able to bring them in and import them into, become part of our team. Which really helped shorten our learning curve and helped us through this whole process. What this project consisted of was constructing landfill to fill waterways between two existing terminals. And by doing that we were able to construct a terminal of about 304 acres in size that has the capacity to support 18 key cranes and these are some of the largest key cranes in the world. There are tandem live dual trolley crane with the secondary trolley automated. The container yard itself has about 33 container stacks in them, overall capacities roughly 75,000 TEU, and each stack is managed by automatic stacking cranes. On the water side of the container yard we have electrified AGB's which are automated guided vehicles to bring containers from the Wharf to the container yard. We also have an intermodal rail yard that is about 12 tracks, 8 working tracks for storage. Max has an overall capacity of about 1.1 million TU. One of the key environmental mitigation measures that that we implemented on this terminal was electrifying the terminal operating equipment. By doing so, we were able to basically reduce the emissions from the terminal by 50% while doubling its capacity. By the time it's finished, it will have cost somewhere about 2.2 billion in both construction equipment and technologies. For me, it's been a project of a lifetime. There's not many people that that get to work on a project of this scale and this complexity. Throughout this project, one of the key things that I've learned is the importance of teamwork and collaboration, bringing both parties together to understand the design side and to understand the operation side. And that's the good thing about our partnership, Is that Mafia Nickel? Been there from the beginning for the long haul and they will be there at the very end. And that partnership has been invaluable to Long Beach Container Terminal.
