The Port of South Louisiana and Associated Terminals (AT) recently dedicated a new 40,000 square foot multipurpose warehouse at the Globalplex Intermodal Terminal.
This new warehouse, which has been in operation since early this year, significantly increases the product storage capacity at this facility, and allows AT to continue to develop new services to offer to shippers and receivers of bulk and breakbulk cargoes on the Lower Mississippi River.
The new building, designed by URS Corporation and built by Harris Builders, is the model for efficient cargo operations. Twenty-one foot high concrete walls form the base of the building, allowing bulk cargoes to be stacked to maximize the building’s volume.
This warehouse can also be subdivided to handle multiple cargoes simultaneously, and the large truck doors on all sides allow easy ingress and egress of the cargoes. With this new warehouse,AT will be able to handle and store bulk cargoes that move in larger volumes than would been possible in the past.
The design is conducive for handling large quantities of fertilizers, minerals, and other such cargoes, arriving by vessel, barges, railcars, or trucks. Globalplex Terminal is located at mile 138.6 AHP on the Lower Mississippi River. This facility comprises four warehouses, extensive open lay down areas and a deep water dock equipped with two gantry cranes. The terminal is operated by Associated Terminals, and is staffed with 18 full time employees. Typical bulk cargoes handled at this facility include alloys, coal, alumina, coke, DDG, sand, fluorspar, scrap and rice.
General cargoes handled include containers, pipe, coils, plate, granite blocks, vehicles, heavy lifts and project cargo. In 2005, when Associated Terminals became the sole operator of the Globalplex facility, a goal was established to become more than a typical transfer terminal by increasing specialty terminal operations. Since then, AT has developed services such as automated cargo bagging, ocean container stuffing, cargo transfer from ocean container to barge, and transloading bulk products directly from hopper trucks to barges or to bags.
Future plans for the facility include expansion of the dock and additional covered storage/warehouse buildings.