Seafood Industrial Park Receives Grant for Improvements

The city’s Seafood Industrial Park has once again been recognized for its contribution and importance to Virginia’s commercial fishing and heavy marine industries by being awarded a $506,508 Virginia Port Authority grant for improvements to the park. This was the largest of seven grants awarded from $1 million allocated by the VPA’s Aid to Local Ports Grant Program for fiscal year 2021.

The grant funds will be used for the South Barge Mooring Modifications project, which is designed to refurbish and improve the current heavy barge mooring on the southern side of the commercial pier. This project will create much needed additional capacity at the pier to accommodate a greater variety of larger vessels and nearly doubling the number of vessels allowed at this section of the pier. Additional planned improvements include upgrading safety equipment along the pier and replacing the current wooden mooring structure with more durable concrete pilings for decades of dependable service. Construction on the project is scheduled to begin later this summer.

The Port Authority has awarded the city over $2.2 million through five grants in recent years for improvement projects within this one hundred year old maritime facility. The infrastructure improvement and capacity building efforts at the park resulted in record breaking revenue being collected by the city last year.