This is the third time the port’s owner, Alan Levine, has applied for a TIGER grant. The Port of Tucson is a 780-acre facility on Tucson’s southeast side. Levine has invested about $15 million on his own to develop the project, including 2 million square feet of warehouses.
“The Port of Tucson is an outstanding facility that will play a major role in the economic growth of Tucson and Southern Arizona,” said Arizona Representative Ron Barber, who assisted in securing the grant. “This grant will increase Arizona’s competitiveness in overseas markets and is significant to the entire region.”
In May, Barber wrote to the Department of Transportation supporting the grant application.
“This is really incredible,” Levine added. “It’s going to do so much for Southern Arizona. We now can become a true inland port.”
The Port of Tucson is Union Pacific Railroad’s only intermodal ramp in Arizona. The expansion of the port’s current capacity to handle transloading to and from international ocean containers is expected to increase Arizona’s competitiveness in overseas markets and distinguishes this project as one of regional significance.
Barber said he supported the grant because he believes that increasing domestic container use will result in lower transportation costs for Arizona when shipping products within the United States and to and from Mexico.
Levine said the funding will allow the port to build a ramp off Union Pacific’s main line that runs through Tucson from coast to coast, allowing cargo containers to be unloaded here or transferred to trucks or other trains.