Jacksonville Mayor John Peyton announced the initial agreement to develop a $360 million container terminal saying, "Jacksonville is well on its way to becoming one of the largest and most successful port cities on the East Coast and the premier logistics and tansportation hub in the Southeastern United States." Rick Ferrin, executive director of Jaxport, the port authority, added, "Today's agreement with Hanjin underscores Jacksonville's new role in global trade."
The agreement calls for the 170-acre Hanjin Shipping Terminal in Jacksonville to begin operations in 2011. It will have a capacity of 1 million twenty-foot-equivalent units (TEUs) per year, roughly equivalent to 7.5 million tons of cargo. Hanjin, Korea's largest container shipping line, handles over 100 million tons of cargo annually and operates in 50 countries. Hanjin's subsidiary, Total Terminal International, currently operates dedicated terminals in Long Beach and Oakland, CA and Seattle, WA.