Sweden-based contractor and developer Skanska has won a $861 million contract to transform the 73-acre South Brooklyn Marine Terminal into one of the biggest dedicated offshore wind ports in the U.S., the company announced.
SBMT is a historic part of New York City’s working waterfront. It will become a critical piece of the Empire Wind 1 project, the first of two offshore wind facilities, facilitating the reception, storage and pre-assembly of offshore turbine components.
The port, when finished, will serve as the operational and maintenance hub for the offshore wind farm, acting to integrate power from Empire Wind 1 to New York City’s electricity grid at Gowanus Substation in Brooklyn. SBMT will also be scalable and able to expand as a port for future developments in the East Coast offshore wind market.
The SBMT transformation, under development by Norwegian energy and offshore wind company Equinor, will support the Empire Wind project’s first phase.
Skanska’s work will include the demolition of existing buildings, ground improvements for staging wind turbine components and the installation of underground utilities and two heavy-lift crane pads. In addition, the project will require significant waterfront and marine upgrades, such as dredging new and existing berths, upgrading bulkheads and installing new dock facilities.
The contractor will also construct a 85,000-square-foot operations building with warehouse, office and parking facilities to support the construction and operations of the Empire Wind 1 project.
In March, the Empire Wind and the Building & Construction Trades Council of Greater New York and Vicinity announced the signing of a project labor agreement for the construction of SBMT. In a first-of-its-kind PLA for Equinor, the agreement will create 1,000 union construction jobs and apprenticeships in local New York Communities, according to a release.