× Expand The barge service relies on tugboats to pull the ships up and down the river. (Photo by Jay Paul)

“Tumbleweeds blowing through the place.”

That’s how Kim Scheeler remembers what was then the Port of Richmond — since rebranded as the Richmond Marine Terminal — when he first saw it in 2008.

He had come to Richmond from Tampa, Florida, to take the reins of ChamberRVA as president and chief executive officer. Tampa had a thriving port, and Scheeler winced when he saw how poorly the one in Richmond was doing.

“They were really struggling,” he says. “The world of transportation and logistics had changed so much that nobody wanted to have a small ship that would come up the river and call on the Port of Richmond.”

Fast-forward 11 years, to 2019.

“You go out there now, and it’s a vibrant port,” Scheeler says. “I think the future is nothing but great. Twenty years from now, we’ll look back on it and say, ‘Wow, that’s been a big deal for us.’ ”

Jane Ferrara, interim director of economic development for the City of Richmond, puts an exclamation point on the possibilities for the terminal along the James River near the Commerce Road industrial area, saying, “I can envision an industrial renaissance occurring around the port in years to come.”

The Richmond Marine Terminal’s evolution from a backwater port going nowhere to a place with the potential to spur an industrial renaissance in the capital city is a story of ingenuity, grit, good fortune and a spark of inspiration.

The inspiration, says Scheeler, came largely from Robert A. Crum Jr., former executive director of the Richmond Regional Planning District Commission, who suggested that a barge service for the port might be possible.

With the support of local, state and federal authorities, the commission won a federal grant to fund the barge service as a way to take trucks off the interstate, reduce wear and tear on the roads, and improve air quality.

But a barge service?

“There were a few people who said we were crazy. There were other people who said we were beyond crazy,” Scheeler recalls with a laugh.

To be sure, the barge service started slowly, very slowly. During all of 2008, only 149 containers were shipped by barge to the Port of Richmond. Ten years later, in 2018, the Richmond Marine Terminal — with an infusion of capital and new container-handling equipment — tallied 29,685 containers.

The terminal’s original barge, an 80-footer called the 64 Express, has been replaced by another barge, the Richmond Express, that’s the length of a football field — 309 feet long by 55 feet wide. In March, a second football-field-size barge, the Virginia Express, was put into service.

× Expand Virginia Port Authority CEO John Reinhart envisions the Richmond Marine Terminal handling 60,000 containers per year. (Jay Paul)

John Reinhart, the CEO and executive director of the Virginia Port Authority, has been a big supporter of the barge service, which relies on tugboats to pull the barges up and down the river. With a second big barge in service, Reinhart says the Richmond Marine Terminal can go from three days a week of regular barge service between Richmond and Norfolk to five or six days a week.

“They transit the river at nighttime,” Reinhart says. “We could have a barge being loaded [in Hampton Roads] and a barge being loaded and unloaded in Richmond the same day, and they pass each other at night. So, suddenly you could have seven days a week [of] service in both facilities.”

With an expanded barge service in place, Reinhart envisions the handling of 60,000 containers per year, double the current pace, which would take about 120,000 trucks off Interstate 64 annually.

The success of the barge service out of the Richmond Marine Terminal has not gone unrecognized.

The federal Maritime Administration, Reinhart says, has identified the Richmond Marine Terminal barge service as “the most successful marine highway effort in the United States.” The Marine Highway program is an effort by the U.S. Department of Transportation to shift freight to waterways from congested U.S. highways.

Ferrara, Reinhart and Scheeler all say that explosive growth in warehouses and distribution facilities has been occurring around the Richmond Marine Terminal.

In 2016, the City of Richmond leased its Marine Terminal to the Port of Virginia for 40 years, ensuring that the fast-growing Hampton Roads port would have operational authority over the local port until 2056. Ferrara, speaking to the economic potential of the rejuvenated Marine Terminal, says that since the lease was signed, almost 3 million square feet of new and modern industrial space near the terminal have been completed or announced, with investments totaling more than $100 million.

“One of those properties just leased over 450,000 square feet of space to Brother International. Brother stated in its announcement that its decision to locate there was attributable to its proximity to the Richmond Marine Terminal and access to the Port of Virginia,” Ferrara says.

Reinhart says the Brother International Corp. announcement alone, for a facility on Commerce Road, will mean hundreds of new jobs.

The totality of the barge service, and the new investments around the Marine Terminal, casts Richmond in a global perspective.

“It puts Richmond on the map,” Reinhart says.