SeaPoint Industrial Terminal Complex – an innovative multi-use, multi-tenant industrial terminal site in Savannah, Ga. with a strong focus on sustainability – recently won the 2023 Phoenix Award for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Region IV. The award was presented on August 9 at Brownfields 2023, a national sustainable communities conference in Detroit, Mich. 

The Phoenix Awards recognize extraordinary practitioners and brownfield projects across the United States. The environmental clean-up of the former Tronox/Kerr-McGee industrial site on Savannah’s eastside is the largest environmental remediation project by area since the inception of the Georgia Brownfield Program and was completed by Terracon Consultants in 2022. The $38 million privately funded project spanned 755 acres and included 84 distinct work elements.

 “We’re thrilled that SeaPoint Complex now serves as a clean, green foundation for a new era of sustainable industrial terminal growth on the U.S. East Coast,” said Reed Dulany, President and CEO of Dulany Industries, Inc. “We’re incredibly grateful to Terracon Consultants for helping us bring this brownfield site back into productive use to bring new jobs to Georgia and to set a new standard for environmental remediation in the Southeast.”

With more than 600 upland acres of land for development, a mile of deepwater access directly on the main shipping channel, plus existing rail, utilities and office buildings in a Federal Opportunity Zone, SeaPoint Complex has attracted significant interest from national and international companies interested in expanding to coastal Georgia. SeaPoint Complex is a joint venture between Dulany Industries, Inc. and NantWorks. 

The SeaPoint industrial site on Savannah’s eastside was originally developed in the 1950s by American Cyanamid to produce titanium dioxide and was subsequently owned by Kemira, Kerr-McGee and Tronox over the years. In 2009, Tronox filed for bankruptcy and shut down nearly all former operations at the site, resulting in significant high-wage job and tax base losses for Chatham County. As part of the bankruptcy settlement, site ownership was transferred to Greenfield Environmental Trust Group, with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Georgia Environmental Protection Division (EPD) and state and federal governments serving as beneficiaries of the trust. In 2013, Dulany Industries, Inc. was selected to purchase the site and to undertake environmental clean-up efforts designed to return the site to productive use, utilizing the site’s one mile of deepwater access directly on the Savannah river. 

In 2017, a six-year Corrective Action Plan (CAP) was completed jointly by the U.S. EPA, Georgia EPD, the Greenfield Environmental Trust and Dulany Industries Inc., and was approved by the Georgia EPD in consultation with the EPA. Later that year, Dulany Industries, Inc. finalized the purchase of the 1,600-acre site, which was renamed SeaPoint Industrial Terminal Complex, and deeded 728 acres of land to the State of Georgia for marshland protection and as an additional buffer for Old Fort Jackson. 

EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler visited SeaPoint in 2020 and celebrated the site as a national model for environmental remediation. Georgia Governor’s Nathan Deal and Brian Kemp, Georgia Senators Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, Georgia Representative Buddy Carter, and the U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm have visited SeaPoint in recent years to learn about this innovative project and to support its sustainable vision.  

The SeaPoint Complex remediation project has previously received the 2022 Savannah Area Chamber of Commerce Environmental Excellence Award, 2023 Georgia American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC) Environmental State Award and 2023 Georgia American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC) People’s Choice Award. In June, the American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC) presented the 2023 National Honor Award for engineering excellence to Terracon Consultants for the landmark environmental remediation project at SeaPoint Complex. 

According to a University of Georgia study, SeaPoint will create 1,700+ new high-wage jobs in a federal Opportunity Zone in Savannah, Ga., and generate an estimated annual economic impact of nearly $1 billion.