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The Philadelphia Regional Port Authority (PRPA) has launched a request for qualifications on September 23 for the Southport Marine Terminal Complex P3 project.

Interested parties must submit their qualification documents on or before 18 November 2015. The shortlist is scheduled to be announced by December this year, while the request for proposals would be launched also in December.

Located in the City of Philadelphia, along the Delaware River, the project involves the design, build, finance, operation and maintenance one or more industrial or commercial development activities and all related facilities on one or more of the three available sites at the Southport Marine Terminal Complex. The 3 sites located at the Southport Marine Terminal Complex are:

• The Southport Marine Terminal site consists of approximately 119 acres and is currently permitted for construction and operation as a container terminal. PRPA will consider any and all uses for one or more of the Southport sites or any portion.

• The Southport West Terminal site is a parcel of land consisting of approximately 75 acres and is available for development. It is available for development such as a distribution center, manufacturing site, cross-docking facility, or automobile logistics center.

• Pier 124 is a 1,132-foot long by 167-foot wide finger pier. Piers 122 and 124 are being refurbished into multi-purpose bulk facilities, able to handle grains, fertilizers, wood products and other bulk cargos. Pier 124 North is available for development as part of the scope of the project.

The project is located centrally between the Northeast and the mid-Atlantic regions to efficiently serve one of the most densely populated and attractive consumer markets in the United States. The Northeastern United States region accounts for 27% of the country's GDP and 25% of the country's population, with a significant proportion of the region's host states sustaining higher than national average GDP per capita.

A request for expressions of interest issued in October last year attracted many responses from maritime industry, manufacturing and energy companies, but PRPA hopes the RFQ will attract potential bidders from other industry sectors as well.

The companies that submitted proposals were the following: Global Auto Processing Services; Atlantic Realty; Katoen Natie Group; Liberty Property Trust; MarkWest Energy Partners; OHL Infrastructure Inc.; Philadelphia Energy Solutions; Walsh Construction; Anthony Bruttaniti, representing the Philadelphia Global Trade Center LLC; Holt Logistics Corp.; Liberty Energy Trust; LNG America; Navigator Gas LLC; Penn City INvestments & Affiliated Companies; T. Parker Host, and WesPac Midstream LLC.

In the RFQ the PRPA encourages private firms to partner with other firms to form a team that can effectively utilize all of the available acreage within the first 10 years of the term of the Development Agreement.

The PRPA board of directors is being advised by Ernst & Young, Hatch Mott MacDonald and Martin Associates.

See RFQ:

http://www.philaport.com/Southport%20RFQ/RFQ%20Document/Southport_RFQ%20-%20Final%20RFQ.pdf