Ports of Indiana Secures $25M BUILD Grant for Jeffersonville

JEFFERSONVILLE, Indiana – Ports of Indiana received a $25 million federal BUILD grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation on July 7 to support a $32 million expansion of its Jeffersonville port on the Ohio River. The project will install a 300-ton crane system—replacing the existing 35-ton lift capacity—and construct a 6,500-square-foot dock and 22,000-square-foot warehouse. Completion is targeted for 2028.

How Is the Funding Structured?

The $25 million grant comes from the Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage Development (BUILD) programme, administered by USDOT, covering approximately 78% of the total $32 million project cost. The source of the remaining $7 million was not disclosed by Ports of Indiana in its announcement. BUILD grants are discretionary awards supporting surface transportation infrastructure projects with demonstrable local or regional economic impact, and the $25 million individual award represents the upper tier of the programme’s typical $5 million to $25 million per-project range.

Key Funding Data

How Does This Compare to Similar Funding Programs?

The $25 million BUILD award to Jeffersonville is the single largest federal grant in Ports of Indiana’s history, surpassing any previous discretionary infrastructure award received by the three-port system. By comparison, USDOT’s 2026 BUILD round distributed approximately $1.5 billion across 117 projects nationwide, with port and freight-multimodal projects representing roughly 18% of awards by value. The Jeffersonville grant’s emphasis on barge-rail transloading aligns with a broader pattern: inland river port projects on the Ohio and Mississippi corridors have captured an increasing share of BUILD freight-designated funds since 2021, reflecting USDOT’s prioritisation of water-rail intermodal congestion relief. (Source: USDOT BUILD programme data, 2026)

The project’s 300-ton lift capacity will place Jeffersonville among a limited group of Ohio River terminals capable of handling oversized breakbulk and heavy-lift cargo without reliance on mobile crane barges. The nearest comparable heavy-lift terminal on the Ohio River corridor—Port of Cincinnati’s public landing—operates at a 150-ton fixed crane capacity, making Jeffersonville’s planned 300-ton system a regional differentiator for wind energy components, transformers, and industrial machinery. (Source: Ports of Indiana, 2026; U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Waterborne Commerce Statistics, 2025)

No detailed cost-benefit analysis or projected cargo tonnage increase was publicly released with the grant announcement, and the specific source of the $7 million non-federal match was not disclosed.

Editor’s Analysis

Jeffersonville’s expansion lands at a moment when inland multimodal terminals are absorbing pressure from container shipping volatility—Xeneta data indicates spot rates are projected to fall no more than 10% over the next six months, a shallower decline than earlier 25% drop forecasts, signalling persistent supply chain reconfiguration toward river-rail corridors as alternatives to congested coastal gateways. Simultaneously, global rail freight markets are projected to expand at a 7–10% CAGR through 2035 in the Asia-Pacific region alone, driven by manufacturing shifts that will feed demand for Ohio River breakbulk terminals handling machinery, steel, and heavy equipment imports. (Source: Xeneta, 2026; IndexBox, 2025) The decision to locate the port’s first general cargo facility outside the floodplain also reflects a hardening underwriting reality: insurers and federal funders increasingly require flood-resilient infrastructure as a condition of capital access along the Ohio-Mississippi system.

FAQ

Q: What will the new 300-ton crane at Jeffersonville port be used for?
A: The 300-ton crane system will handle heavy-lift and breakbulk cargo—such as wind turbine components, electrical transformers, and oversized industrial machinery—that the port’s existing 35-ton capacity cannot lift. It will serve the port’s first general cargo facility located outside the floodplain.

Q: When will the Jeffersonville port expansion be completed?
A: Ports of Indiana expects construction to be completed in 2028. A specific construction start date was not provided in the grant announcement.

Q: How does this expansion affect barge-to-rail transloading at the port?
A: The project will double the Jeffersonville port’s existing barge-rail transloading capacity, enabling higher-volume transfers between Ohio River barge traffic and rail connections serving Midwest manufacturing and distribution networks. Exact current and projected transloading volumes were not disclosed.