APM Container Terminal at Choctaw Point

The APM Container Terminal at Choctaw Point is the $300 million centerpiece of the Alabama State Port Authority’s (ASPA) strategic plan for the Port of Mobile.  ASPA selected Volkert to provide key civil engineering services for this complex and vital project.

Volkert provided environmental, civil site design, survey, structural design, and construction engineering and inspection services for 120 acres on Choctaw Point, including seventy acres of uplands that required decontamination and approximately fifty acres of land reclamation as well as plans for dredging the Mobile River Channel, utility coordination, drainage, and site stabilization. Survey services included construction staking, topographic, geotechnical support, and property mapping.

The new terminal greatly expands the cargo capacity of the port and provides hundreds of permanent jobs. Challenges included the decontamination of former industrial areas, mitigation of environmental impacts, and the use of dredged material as fill for reclaimed areas. Volkert’s designs for dredging, backfilling, reclamation, grading, and drainage helped usher the project to completion. The completed terminal has generated over three hundred permanent jobs, a substantial increase in cargo traffic, and substantial new tax revenue.

In 2012, the terminal was inducted into the Alabama Engineering Hall of Fame and has received a number of industry awards including the 2010 Engineering Project of the Year Award by Mobile Area Council of Engineers. Volkert’s work on the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) also received the Environmental Award for Mitigation by the American Association of Port Authorities, the Engineering Excellence Award by the Alabama Chapter of American Council of Engineering Companies, and the Environmental Excellence Award by Partners for Environmental Progress.