Page 24 - Port of Baltimore - Issue 3 - 2022

HISTORY
Then
12
PICTURES OF A CHANGING PORT
Seagirt Marine Terminal
Opened in 1990, Seagirt Marine Terminal was hailed in The Baltimore Sun as “one of the most technologically advanced terminals anywhere” and “Camden Yards on the Patapsco.”
Former Baltimore Mayor William Donald Schaefer conceived of the facility as far back as the 1970s, as a way to move cargo more quickly through the Port.
“[Seagirt’s] seven, 230-foot-high cranes hoist multi-ton boxes, known as containers, on and off ships at the pace
of three dozen an hour, or 10 more than regular cranes,” the Sun reported in 1994. “Its computerized gate facility acts like a toll plaza, speeding the movement of trucks dropping off and picking up containers. And its dockside rail terminal, known as the Intermodal Container Transfer Facility, permits the direct flow of containers from the ships to the trains.”
However, Seagirt really came into its own in 2010, when the Maryland Port Administration signed a 50-year public- private partnership agreement with Ports America Chesapeake (PAC) to operate the terminal. The agreement was meant to help Seagirt become more profitable in the wake of a massive national recession, and it accomplished just that.
[22] The Port of Baltimore ■ ISSUE 3 / 2022
KATHY BERGREN SMITH
BILL MCALLEN
COURTESY OF PORTS AMERICA CHESAPEAKE