San Francisco awards breakbulk contract to Metro Ports

Metro Ports, a provider of stevedoring, terminal services and warehousing, said it reached a five-year contract with the Port of San Francisco to manage its Pier 80 breakbulk terminal.

Last year the facility handled 160,000 metric tons of cargo such as steel coils, yachts, lumber, and newsprint. Metro, the operating company of Nautilus International Holding Corp., moves bulk cargo at Pier 94 for Hanson Aggregates Mid Pacific, and operates a cruise terminal at the port. Its ties to the port go back to 1852 when its original parent company worked the docks.

Nautilus placed Metropolitan Stevedore Co. and several other port-specific cargo handling companies under the Metro Ports brand.

Pier 80 is a 70-acre facility that has four deepwater berths, four shore-side gantry cranes with 40-long-ton capacity, on-dock rail, 400,000 square feet of covered storage, paved land for staging of project cargoes, and quick access to two major highways.

The new Metro agreement coincides with the July opening of the port's new $26 million Illinois Street Intermodal Bridge, which will reinstate on-dock rail service to Pier 80.

The port also recently concluded an 11-year rail agreement with San Francisco Bay Railroad, formerly LB Railco, to operate the port's rail facilities, including those at Pier 80.

Metro is based in Wilmington, Calif.