The four biggest cranes on the East Coast arrived in Norfolk Monday morning.
The 170-foot tall cranes are fully-assembled and were brought in to the Virginia International Gateway in Norfolk by a large carrier.
With the arrival of the cranes, the Norfolk Harbor can service the largest container ships sailing the Atlantic Ocean.
To get the “ship-to-shore” cranes ready to go, it cost the Virginia Port Authority more than $44,000,000.
Virginia Port Authority's board approved a spending package to purchase for the cost, in 2017.
Official say the cranes are big enough to reach across 26-container long vessels and they will help the port operations for decades.
The new equipment is among the last needed to finish one of Virginia International Gateways’s two expansion projects, to increase the port’s overall annual container capacity by 40 percent (1.2 million container units) by 2020.
This particular project is a $320 million expansion of the terminal’s berth, rail operations, and stacks-yard.
Officials predict this part of the expansion will be done by June 2019.