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SCPA Port Dillon
Project Summary
The South Carolina Ports Authority (SCPA) selected Ragnar Benson and Hanson as the design-build team for its new intermodal facility in Dillon, South Carolina. The intermodal facility is designed to support a Harbor Freight distribution center that is being constructed nearby. The new intermodal facility will receive containers from the SCPA’s primary ports, where the containers have been transloaded from ships to trains. After arriving at the intermodal facility, these containers are transloaded from the trains to trucks. This process reduces truck traffic at the primary ports and the cost of hauling freight through metropolitan areas to the Harbor Freight distribution center.
The $29 million intermodal facility features two 5,000-foot operating tracks on each side of a loaded container storage area, straddled by a pair of rubber-tired gantry cranes.
The site, a greenfield location, featured several unique challenges, including a large area of wetlands; soft and wet, fine-grained soils; and limited grade to allow for stormwater release. However, the biggest design challenges were driven by a need to accommodate several changes from the original concept as additional survey information and layout requirements became available. This also included changes requested by the owner and the need for a new stormwater pollution prevention plan. The changes were addressed so the project could remain on its approximately 10-month schedule and within budget.
Hanson’s services included site development, grading and permitting and design of the facility’s lead and operating tracks and roadways.
The project required extensive coordination with Ragnar Benson, the SCPA and its program management consultant, TranSystems; subconsultants; testing firms; the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control; the South Carolina Department of Transportation; local utilities; and designers of the four on-site buildings.