The city’s Seafood Industrial Park has once again been recognized by the Virginia Port Authority for its contribution and importance to Virginia’s commercial fishing and heavy marine industries. Newport News has been awarded a grant of $563,129 for improvements to this city-owned facility.
The Aid to Local Ports Grant Program, administered by the Virginia Port Authority (VPA), is a state program to enhance facilities that support commercial marine activities across the Commonwealth of Virginia. This grant award to Newport News is the largest of four grants awarded to localities from $1 million allocated by the State for fiscal year 2022. The funding will help refurbish and improve the West Bulkhead Terminal moorings and provide an improved offloading facility for locally harvested seafood. The VPA has awarded the city over $2.7 million through six grants in recent years for infrastructure improvement projects within this important maritime facility. The infrastructure improvements and capacity building efforts at the park have resulted in record breaking revenue being collected through the park by the city in the past several years.
The West Bulkhead Terminal project is designed to refurbish and improve moorings and seafood offloading facilities located along the West side of the harbor. The project will enhance moorings facilities in this area and provide a much-improved unloading area for local catches of crabs, clams and oysters arriving by boat daily. New safety components will be installed as well. Grant funding will be available to the city July 1, 2021, with construction planned to begin this fall. The Seafood Industrial Park provides economic opportunity in the Southeast community of Newport News and is a vital part of the local and regional economy. With the collaboration of the city’s Engineering Department, Department of Development and the Virginia Port Authority, the Seafood Industrial Park continues to be improved significantly for current and future commercial maritime needs and the community at a considerable savings to the taxpayers of Newport News.
