Hanjin Shipping Company Ltd. will not be building a $300 million container shipping terminal at the Port of Jacksonville, Jacksonville Port Authority Interim CEO Roy Schleicher said Thursday morning.
Weakness in the economy caused the project’s demise, not the 47-foot dredging depth planned for the St. Johns River shipping channel, which Jaxport voted to pursue last month. The Hanjin contract had said the company required a depth of 50 feet.
Hanjin had been stretched thin from terminals it built in Korea, Spain and Vietnam. And Jaxport could not easily issue bonds for the project, which would have been publicly financed and repaid through Hanjin’s lease payments.