Port authority improves docks to draw cargo

The Toledo-Lucas County Port Authority Thursday accepted a Broadview Heights, Ohio, company's $3.15 million bid to provide a high-rise material handler machine for Toledo's general-cargo docks.

The port board of directors' award to Ohio CAT Inc. followed by three months a board decision to seek new bids for the material handler after deciding that earlier bid specifications were so vague as to make it impossible to compare a previous round of bids.

The material handler will be used in concert with two high-speed mobile cranes the agency bought in October to modernize the docks' ship loading and unloading capacity. Like the cranes, the material handler is to be paid for with American Recovery and Reinvestment Act grant funds.

Port directors also voted to authorize port staff to accept the lowest and most responsible bid for rebuilding railroad tracks on the dock, work expected to cost about $5 million and also funded by a "stimulus" grant. Agency staff recommended the advance approval at the request of the Ohio Department of Transportation.

The cranes, material-handler, and railroad projects combined represent nearly $15 million in investment in the general-cargo docks, which historically have been used for loading and unloading bulk and break-bulk cargoes such as steel, pig iron, aluminum, sugar, lumber, fertilizers, petroleum coke, and aggregates.

Port officials hope that by upgrading the facility's equipment, Toledo can attract higher-value cargo to its docks - particularly containerized freight for which coastal ports currently dominate the market.

"We've been operating that port with equipment from the 1950s," port authority President Paul Toth said afterward. "Getting new equipment is critical to our competitiveness in the future."

When board member Bernard "Pete" Culp asked whether the new machines would displace dock workers, colleague Dick Gabel, vice president of the International Longshoremen's Union, said the opposite was more likely.

"These two cranes we're putting in the port are absolutely going to increase employment" because they'll make Toledo's waterfront more efficient, Mr. Gabel said. "I see nothing but positives for the employees and everybody in this community."

Sub-assemblies of the two cranes that the port authority ordered last fall from Liebherr Nenzing Crane Co. have arrived at the Port of Toledo and now are being assembled there. Port directors yesterday approved adding $46,890 to that contract, bringing its value up to $6.8 million, to pay for a synchronizing control system that will make it easier for a single operator to control them when both are needed to lift a single piece of heavy cargo.

Mr. Toth said the two cranes are expected to be ready for use by mid-June, at which time a dedication ceremony will be held and the winners of a "Name the Cranes" contest announced.

The port authority's two existing gantry cranes, Big Lucas and Little Lucas, will remain available for backup duty once the new ones enter service. The board of directors yesterday approved spending up to $92,115 to buy - at a discount through the ODOT cooperative-purchasing program - a new diesel generator set for Little Lucas.

The port board's action on the material handler was a disappointment for representatives of RECO Equipment Inc. and Liebherr Construction Equipment Inc., who spoke in hopes of persuading them to reconsider RECO's $5.8 million bid for that machine.

Reed Mahany, RECO's vice president, and Todd Dohnal, Liebherr's product manager for industrial handlers, both said their product has superior safety features.

However, Mr. Toth said the machine to be provided by Ohio CAT met all of the port authority's specifications, including for safety features.

Besides buying new equipment for the general-cargo docks, the port authority also is rebuilding the main access road into the port and has plans to rebuild the main road within the dock area itself.

Construction is under way on George Hardy Drive, the outside access road, and the board yesterday approved paying Toledo Edison Co. just more than $40,000 to relocate utility lines that are in the way of rebuilding St. Lawrence Drive.

Contact David Patch at:

dpatch@theblade.com

or 419-724-6094.