POLB Awards First Pier B Construction Contract

Aerial view of Pier B, courtesy of Port of Long Beach.

The Port of Long Beach, Calif., (POLB) has awarded Alameda, Calif.-based Stacy & Witbeck Inc. a $21.7 million contract for the Pier B Rail Yard East Expansion Project.

This first phase of the Pier B On-Dock Rail Support Facility project involves building a new retaining wall along the Long Beach (710) Freeway and realigning the east end of the yard to relocate a Los Angeles County flood control pump station, POLB reported June 27. Construction is expected to start this summer and wrap up in 2026; 32% of the work will be performed by disadvantaged business enterprises.

The Stacy & Witbeck contract is the first of 10 construction contracts that make up the $1.567 billion Pier B On-Dock Rail Support Facility project (scroll down for video), which will “increase efficiency and reduce emissions by positioning the Port to move 35% of containerized cargo by rail,” according to POLB. All told, the new facility is slated to more than double the size of the existing Pier B rail yard from 82 acres to 171 acres and more than triple the volume of on-dock rail cargo the Port can handle annually, from 1.5 million to 4.7 million TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units).

The existing Pier B rail facility serves as a storage and staging area for trains and is said to be a critical juncture in the Port’s rail network. It is primarily used by Anacostia Rail Holding’s Pacific Harbor Line, Inc., which provides rail dispatching and switching services for POLB as well as the Port of Los Angeles; both ports are served by Class I railroads Union Pacific and BNSF.

The new Pier B On-Dock Rail Support Facility will feature a depot for fueling and servicing up to 30 locomotives at the same time and a full-service staging area to assemble and break down trains up to 10,000 feet long. The overall project will be built in phases with completion scheduled for 2032. Constructing the facility will involve adding more than 130,000 feet of rail, quadrupling the number of tracks from 12 to 48, widening the rail bridge over the Dominguez Channel from two to three tracks, and reconfiguring and improving nearby Pico Avenue and Pier B Street.

To help fund the project, the Port, to date, has secured $643 million in grants from Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, California Department of Transportation, California Surface Transportation Agency, California Transportation Commission, Federal Highway Administration, U.S. Maritime Administration, and U.S. Department of Transportation.

The Pier B On-Dock Rail Support Facility project is the largest component of the Port’s 10-year capital program, according to POLB. Last month, the Long Beach Board of Harbor Commissioners signed off on a $760 million budget for POLB’s 2025 fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1, 2024; it is 19.5% higher than the budget adopted last year, due largely to infrastructure projects like the Pier B project and the proposed Pier Wind. The FY2025 capital budget comes in at $368.3 million, 47.2% higher than the prior year, and of that total, $204.9 million is for the Pier B project.

Further Reading: “Watch: POLB Prepares for ‘Year of Rail’”