Why Should Delaware Care?
The Port of Wilmington is one of the last anchors of well-paying, blue-collar jobs in Delaware. It also has suffered a string of financial blows over a dramatic six-year-period. Now state officials says its future is bright after their negotiations determined how to cover cost overruns for construction of a new port terminal in Edgemoor.
Delaware officials intend to close a funding gap for their ambitious but controversial plan to build a new port in Edgemoor with the help of an extra $110 million from the state.
During a meeting Friday of a state board that oversees the Port of Wilmington, Delaware Secretary of State Charuni Patibanda-Sanchez said the new taxpayer money would join a mix of federal and private dollars intended to close a budget shortfall facing the long-delayed Edgemoor construction project.
The newly committed money marks the latest in Delaware’s yearslong effort to transform the former DuPont chemical plant in Edgemoor into a container shipping terminal. State officials say the facility could rival some of the biggest East Coast ports, bringing thousands of new jobs to the Wilmington area.
But Edgemoor has also become one of the state’s most politically fraught infrastructure projects. It has drawn stiff opposition from some nearby residents, and from competing ports in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. The project also tested Gov. Matt Meyer’s administration during his first days in office when rival Democrats in the legislature took steps to limit his ability to shape the state’s port oversight board.
The latest agreement over the Edgemoor costs follows weeks of negotiations between Delaware officials and those from the Port of Wilmington’s private operator, Enstructure.
When announcing those negotiations last month, Patibanda-Sanchez said a revised plan to build the container terminal would cost roughly $669 million — a figure that reflected a scaled-back design featuring a shorter bulkhead, where ships would dock.
But even with the reduced scope, the project’s total cost had climbed beyond earlier estimates because of inflation, and tariffs, among other factors, port officials had said.
Under the cost sharing plan announced Friday, the federal government would contribute an additional $69 million to the project, while Enstructure would invest another $75 million.
Delaware would provide the remaining $110 million needed to close the funding gap.
But state officials declined to say publicly where the additional taxpayer money would come from.
Patibanda-Sanchez said a funding source had been identified but she declined to name it. She said the responsibility to appropriate state dollars sits with the state legislature.
Asked for details about the source of the new Edgemoor money, a spokeswoman for the Senate Democrats said in a written statement that budget negotiations for all state government operations are ongoing, noting that about a month remains in this year’s legislative session.
“But lawmakers remain committed to getting shovels into the ground on the Delaware Container Terminal Project and will consider all options to fund this critical infrastructure project that will bring thousands of jobs to the First State,” the spokeswoman, Sarah Fulton, said.
Questions about the state’s financial commitment also surfaced on Friday during a separate meeting of another port oversight committee, led by state lawmakers.
During the meeting, Mike Houghton, a longtime Delaware finance official and private attorney, asked the state’s port director Brian Devine how the Meyer administration intended to pay for the Edgemoor construction.
Devine said the funding source “is still being finalized,” but acknowledged that the administration had already discussed a financing framework with lawmakers during an executive session meeting that was closed to the public.
“I’m not in a position to be able to share that at this time,” Devine said.
In response, Houghton noted that past port appropriations had been allocated through the state’s capital funding legislation, called the Bond Bill.
Separate from his role in port oversight, Houghton served for years as a member of Delaware’s budget forecasting committee. Last month, Meyer dismissed him after he criticized the administration over what he described as transparency issues surrounding the state’s prominent corporate franchise.
Language buried in the epilogue section of a past bond bill allowed then-Gov. John Carney in 2024 to pull nearly $200 million out of a out of the little-known state pot of money to fund what was then about a third of the construction cost for Edgemoor.
At the time, the Carney administration declined to share details of a pot of money, even as it was likely to become caught up in the fallout of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling over Delaware’s practice of collecting unclaimed property from companies.
Asked if Delaware would return that pot of money for its latest contribution, Patibanda-Sanchez declined to comment.
In a statement Tuesday, she said the Edgemoor project has “extensive bipartisan support in the Delaware General Assembly, Delaware’s congressional delegation and current and former Governors.”
She also noted that “out-of-state competitors continue their efforts to stop this project” — a reference to Holt Logistics, operators of terminals at the Port of Philadelphia and at facilities in New Jersey. The competitor was also among the bidders for the contract to manage the Port of Wilmington operations in 2023, but officials ultimately selected Enstructure.
In 2024, a federal judge halted the Edgemoor expansion when ruling in favor of Holt Logistics’ lawsuit that challenged federal permits allowing Delaware to dredge a channel in the Delaware River to the new port site.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reissued those permits earlier this spring. Asked then whether his company would file a renewed legal challenge, Holt Logistics President Leo Holt said he would need to examine the new documents and consult with his attorneys.
“Certainly, the door is wide open for us to do that,” Holt said.
During Friday’s Delaware port board meeting, Darrell Baker, a lobbyist for Holt Logistics, criticized the state’s new deal to cover Edgemoor’s cost overruns, characterizing it as a requirement for the state to pay “a lot more money for a fraction of the dock” – a reference to the scaled down port plans.
Baker also questioned the state’s ability to estimate the total cost of the new port, given recent inflation and instability around the world.
