Lawmakers put shovels in dirt Monday to mark the symbolic start of construction on the Port of Wilmington Edgemoor expansion.
Leadership has said for months that site work is already underway.
Secretary of State Charuni Patibanda-Sanchez chairs the public-private partnership charged with leading the port’s progress, The Diamond State Port Corporation.
New legal complaints were filed in July, challenging the validity of re-issued construction permits and management of the project over the last eight years. But Patibanda-Sanchez attributed the delayed groundbreaking to scheduling challenges.
"This project is going to happen," she said. "We have a strong legal strategy and this project is going to get done. So we are starting."
Phase one of construction, which Delaware committed to help fund with private port operator Enstructure, is set to finish in 2029. Enstructure will be responsible for funding the project's second and final phase.
At full capacity, Gov. Matt Meyer said the Edgemoor expansion will “roughly quadruple” the port of Wilmington's container capacity, which would bring it to 1.2 million Twenty-foot Equivalent Units (TEUs) annually.
US Customs and Border Patrol says seaport facilities in Pennsylvania, Delaware and New Jersey rank at the top for imports of 17 of the US’s most popular produce products, including apples, avocados, and bananas from Central and South America.
The Port of Wilmington's expansion in Edgemoor is a long-stalled under taking. Its most recent delay came last year after federal permits were revoked.
Philippe De Montigny and Matthew Satnick are co-CEOs of the port's private partner, Enstructure.
Satnick said ten years ago, Massachusetts-based Enstructure was an underdog starting out.
"Everybody said...it's going to be impossible," he said. "Here we are at the groundbreaking together, an underdog working with an underdog, and together we're really powerful team."
Enstructure took over the lease on the state's port and Edgemoor properties in 2023, after its original partner defaulted on payments to the state. One of the legal complaints filed against the port this summer questions whether the move was procedurally valid.
Proponents say the expansion - approximately three miles up-river from the current port - will bring thousands of new jobs.
But Barbara Boese, one of five Delaware taxpayers who sued the port in July, stood outside the groundbreaking to protest. The lawsuit accuses the Port Corporation of mismanagement over the last eight years.
Boese argued the state hasn’t shared detailed site plans, which erodes public trust.
"I'm concerned that there is not a clear and obvious plan and the transparency has been lacking from the beginning," she said.
The state has allocated hundreds of millions of dollars in funding to the project. Boese questions the port board’s decision to ask for additional money based on new cost estimates this spring, given most funding allocated hasn’t been spent yet.
The filing attorney, Darrell Baker, on the suit she's a part of against the port is a lobbyist for Holt, Philly's Port operator. Boese said a mutual connection put her into contact with Baker about her concerns with the port.
"(Baker) has other legal and employment options, which he's at liberty to be," she said. "I will say he's our attorney of record...let the courts hear the complaint and the evidence and make a judgment."
