Tradepoint Atlantic (TPA) is pushing forward with a multitude of new projects including a new site “off campus.”
Tradepoint Atlantic, the immense 3,300-acre logistics center located on Sparrow’s Point in the Port of Baltimore, is a difficult place to pigeonhole. “Logistics center” doesn’t really define just how expansive the facilities and services are at TPA.
Just a little examination outlines the breadth of activity? Is it a Ro/Ro facility? Yes. Is it a bulk facility operator? Yes. Is the TPA a warehouse and distribution center? Yes. Does it provide a rail freight service? Yes. Is it an e-commerce center? Yes. But is it a container terminal? No, not yet but it will be very soon.
But Sparrow Point wasn’t always known as home to the mega-logistics center. Bethlehem Steel occupied the site and operated one of the world’s largest steel mills there before ceasing operations in 2012. In 2014 Redwood Holdings took over Sparrow Point and as they say the rest is history…still in the making.
A Year Ago…
In an interview with AJOT with TPA executives, Kerry Doyle, Managing Director and Russell Williams, Vice President, the question was asked about what has happened over the last year.
Of course, just over a year ago on March 26th the containership Dali collided with the Francis Scott Key bridge, destroying the span, resulting in the death of six workers and blocking the channel entrance to the Port of Baltimore.
The TPA’s Sparrow Point location lies just outside the Key bridge and thus water access, unlike many of the Port’s facilities, remained unaffected although the bridge’s Route 695 cuts through the logistics center.
Of the period, Kerry Doyle, said, “if you turn back a little bit more than a year, it’s kind of bookended by a … a tumultuous time period where the Key Bridge had just collapsed and we were assisting with the initial response and then the recovery efforts essentially with the Key Bridge… But fast-forward to today with the conversations around tariffs and some of the things happening from a global perspective, again inserted a little bit of a turbulent time period.”
The collapse of the bridge resulted in an “all hands on deck” approach for the entire port-community in Baltimore and as Doyle explained, “So, that was a pretty intense period of time for us in trying to balance all the diverted cargo and to clear, create a site that the bridge debris could come to, and be processed and demolished.”
The challenge of navigating tariffs is considerably different but again involves a lot of communication throughout the cargo eco-system. “Trying to understand the tariffs, timing the tariffs, front run the tariffs and get cargo into the United States before the tariff deadlines. Then the extension of the tariff deadline. So, we’ve been constantly working with our customers and our partners to navigate those kinds of turbulent or choppy waters,” Doyle related.
Container Terminal “Moving Along…”
Back in 2022 the TPA announced that a $1 billion joint venture “Sparrow Point Container Terminal” (SPCT) between the TPA and TIL the terminal group associated with the world’s largest containership operator Mediterranean Shipping Co. (MSC) had been inked. SPCT terminal is to be located on 330-acres in TPA with access to the 50-foot main shipping channel. But like all container terminals there is a lot of forward planning to the process before shovel hits ground.
“We’re moving along with the container terminal process, and we’ve gone through the public comment period ..., working through the federal permit process and our environmental impact statements, and part of that is the public comment period. So, we’ve gone through that and we’re in the process of drafting our final EIS [Environmental Impact Statement] and moving towards that sort of ‘record of decision’, which at that point in time, we’ll receive our ultimate approvals for permits for the construction of the facility, for the dredging, as well as for the creation of the upland dredging material containment facility,” Doyle noted.
He added that “we’ve been entrenched with the EPA [Environmental Protection Agency], and the MDE [Maryland Department of the Environment], and all the participating agencies from a federal perspective on navigating that federal permitting process and getting to that ‘record of decision’. Which I think we’re expecting at some point in the back half of the year, probably late Q3, Q4 timeframe for that ‘record of decision’. So that all is moving along quite well from a permitting perspective.”
When the terminal is finished it should be able to handle a 19,000 TEU containership from a “computer perspective” but Doyle said that they were “really focused” on preparing the terminal for 16,600 TEU linehaul ships.
Howard County Expansion
On April 22, 2025, officials of Howard County, Maryland announced that TPA would “establish” a new location in Howard County on Route 1 in Savage (specifically Savage Crossing)— a town about 30-miles from Sparrow Point.
When asked why the TPA chose to establish a logistics hub in Savage, Doyle explained, “Howard County was interesting to us for a couple different reasons, but one of which is just the general welcoming demeanor of the Howard County executive, as well as the county council towards wanting to grow business, and wanting to grow commercial opportunities, and provide residents in the county with jobs and economic impact opportunities.”
From the TPA’s perspective “We really thought it was a great opportunity for us to step outside of the 3,300 acres we have here in Sparrows Point, which is always going to be our main hub, and kind of create a bit of a spoke, and to take our relationships and sort of the hub that we create on the East Coast here and look at an inland opportunity and an inland logistics opportunity in a county, in a region that we think is short of those sorts of facilities and to facilitate that type of commerce,” Doyle said of the potential for a satellite facility. Adding that “It was a natural step outside of the 3,300 acres here at Sparrows Point.”
TPA To Add New Conveyance System
On June 4th the TPA announced a $35 million investment in a state-of-the-art conveyance system and while this move isn’t on the scale of a new container terminal it does advance the overall strategic goals of improving TPA’s services. As Doyle explained handling bulk was always part of the TPA’s plan, and the new conveyance system supports that in a “two-fold” way. “Going back to our original concept of Tradepoint. We really saw that there was an incredible amount of real estate, and it really lends itself to basically facilitate movement of almost all cargo types and commodities if we could plan it right and put the necessary infrastructure in place. So, we had always intended to be in the bulk space as well as the breakbulk space, the auto-Ro/Ro, and someday the container terminal.” The challenge was to try to “strategize” how to best “facilitate those different lines of business [in] the same vicinity because your Lamborghini’s don’t want to be next to a salt pile…”
As Russell Williams pointed out, “It really does concentrate the bulk material down into that southeast peninsula of the property. We’ve got about 75-acres in total, 50 of which is paved right now for the storage of that bulk material. What the conveyor system does is it optimizes the movement of that material from the vessel to the land-side storage and land-side logistics.”
But from a bigger picture perspective, the new conveyance system can extend the TPA’s reach.
“We [TPA] saw it as being a system to optimize the movement of that bulk material, not just only our existing customer base…[And] also, to continue to expand and grab other customers on the East Coast of the United States and to create the density of movement of bulk material here in the Port of Baltimore.” Doyle added.
For the TPA all their projects now in the pipeline contribute to their overall strategy of maximizing their diverse logistics hub at Sparrows Point while adding “spokes” to a hub that will reach out to the US East Coast Mid-Atlantic market.
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