Sparrows Point Container Terminal: what importers should do before 2028

A second container port is under construction six miles from Seagirt

On May 1, 2026, Tradepoint Atlantic and Terminal Investment Limited (TiL), the terminal arm of the MSC group, broke ground on the Sparrows Point Container Terminal. The facts of the project:

Item	Fact
Site	168 acres at Tradepoint Atlantic, the 3,300-acre former Bethlehem Steel site at Sparrows Point
Investment	About $1.2 billion, privately financed
Berths	Two berths sized for ultra-large container vessels
Cranes	Seven ship-to-shore cranes
Rail	On-dock rail
Capacity	More than 1 million containers a year at full build
Federal permit	US Army Corps of Engineers permit issued January 2026
First berth	2028
Full build-out	2030
Carrier	MSC is expected to move its Baltimore business from Seagirt to the new terminal

Seagirt Marine Terminal, the Port of Baltimore’s existing container terminal, handled a record 1,113,309 TEU in 2025 with 15 weekly services. The new terminal adds a second gateway of similar scale on the same harbor. For an importer, that is a once-in-a-generation change in where boxes land, where trucks queue and where the cheapest warehouse sits.

The problem: your 2028 contracts are being written in 2026

Ocean contracts, drayage tenders, warehouse leases and foreign trade zone activations all run on multi-year cycles. An importer that waits until the first vessel is announced will find the east-side buildings leased, the drayage capacity committed and the zone activation still in the queue. The work that makes 2028 easy happens now. The rest of this article is that work, in order.

The port reference page is at /port/sparrows-point-container-terminal/. The location page for the park itself is at /locations/sparrows-point/.

The site, and why it is different from Seagirt

Tradepoint Atlantic is a private port and logistics park. Marine operations run under a ten-year agreement with Host Terminals. The park reports more than 15 million square feet developed and leased, with tenants that include Amazon, FedEx Ground, Under Armour, Home Depot, Floor & Decor, Harley-Davidson and Atlantic Forest Products. Volkswagen Group runs a 115-acre vehicle operation there and Pasha Automotive processes vehicles on site. McLaren expects a 50,000 square foot East Coast processing facility there in the fourth quarter of 2026.

Three things make the site different from the public terminal at Seagirt:

1. Everything is inside FTZ 74. The whole of Tradepoint Atlantic sits inside Foreign Trade Zone 74, the zone administered by the Baltimore Development Corporation. A container can go from the berth to an activated partner warehouse in the same park without leaving the zone footprint.
2. The warehouses are on the terminal. At Seagirt the box leaves the gate and drays to a warehouse. At Sparrows Point, the distribution buildings share the site with the berths.
3. It is on the east side of the harbor. That matters more than it sounds, and the next section explains why.

The east-side advantage until the Key Bridge returns

The Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed on March 26, 2024. The rebuild is now priced at $4.3 billion to $5.2 billion with an opening in late 2030. Until then every truck crossing the harbor uses the I-95 or I-895 tunnel, and hazmat or over-height loads cannot use the tunnels at all. They loop the west side of I-695, about 30 to 35 extra miles and 45 to 60 extra minutes.

Sparrows Point, Dundalk Marine Terminal and Seagirt all sit on the east side of the Patapsco. A move between any of them is a short surface-road hop that never needed the bridge. A container that lands at the new terminal and goes to a partner warehouse at Sparrows Point, Dundalk or eastern Baltimore County never sees a tunnel or the detour. An importer whose warehouse sits south of the harbor, around BWI or Curtis Bay, pays the tunnel or the loop on every box until 2030.

The choice of warehouse side is the single largest routing decision an importer makes in Baltimore this decade. See /locations/dundalk/ for the east-side cluster.

Rail from day one

The new terminal is designed with on-dock rail. On the public side, Seagirt already has an on-dock CSX railhead, and since June 22, 2026 CSX runs double-stack trains through the Howard Street Tunnel with full clearance to the Midwest. The Maryland Port Administration expects about 160,000 more containers a year from the double-stack project. Dundalk, next door, has more than eight miles of on-terminal rail with direct Norfolk Southern service.

For an importer this means the rail option should be in every 2028 lane plan, not added later. Ask which railroad will serve the new terminal’s on-dock track, what the first inland destinations are, and how a box moves between the two container terminals if a vessel string changes. The desk handles the rail side through /services/intermodal-rail/.

The neighbour: a $3.7 billion shipyard

On October 6, 2026, Anduril Industries announced a $3.7 billion submarine-component shipyard at Tradepoint Atlantic. The plan calls for about 2 million square feet, about 3,100 direct jobs and components for Virginia-class submarines under a Navy production contract of up to $2.9 billion. It takes the site that US Wind gave up in October 2026 when it relinquished its offshore wind lease.

Two consequences for importers. First, a multi-year construction inbound of steel, modules and machine tools will share the east-side roads and the park’s yards with container freight. Second, a defense supply chain will form around the yard, and it will want secure, compliance-aware warehousing within a mile of Dundalk and Seagirt. Space on the east side gets tighter, not looser. If you want a building there for 2028, the time to sign is before the shipyard’s suppliers do. The defense side is covered at /industries/defense-aerospace-government/.

Timeline to keep on the wall

Date	Event
January 2026	US Army Corps of Engineers permit for the terminal
May 1, 2026	Groundbreaking, Tradepoint Atlantic and TiL
June 22, 2026	Double-stack rail operations begin through the Howard Street Tunnel
October 2026	US Wind exits Sparrows Point, Anduril shipyard announced
Summer 2027	Key Bridge main-span construction begins
2028	First berth opens at Sparrows Point Container Terminal
2030	Full terminal build-out, Key Bridge opening late in the year

The importer checklist

Contracts

• Ask your ocean carrier, and MSC in particular, which Baltimore terminal each service will call from 2028 and whether the change triggers any contract clause.
• Write 2027 and 2028 drayage tenders terminal-agnostic. Name both Seagirt and Sparrows Point as origin points with a rate for each.
• Check chassis provisions. A second terminal changes where chassis pools sit and where empties return.
• Put a clause in warehouse agreements that covers a change of arrival terminal without a change of rate.

Warehouse location

• Decide the side of the harbor first. East side avoids the bridge detour until 2030 and sits next to both container terminals.
• Baltimore metro industrial vacancy was 8.9 percent in the third quarter of 2026, with 2.5 million square feet under construction. Buildings exist, but the east-side ones near the park will go first.
• Match the building to the program: dry storage, bonded, zone-activated, or value-added. Our partner warehouses cover each. See /services/warehousing/.

Rail

• Model the Midwest share of your volume on double-stack rail now, using the Seagirt railhead, so the 2028 move to on-dock rail at the new terminal is a change of ramp and not a change of plan.
• Ask for ramp-to-ramp and destination dray as separate rate lines.

FTZ activation

• Activation runs through the grantee and US Customs and Border Protection, and it takes time. A program that wants zone status on day one of 2028 should file in 2027 at the latest.
• The whole park is inside the zone footprint, so the question is which building to activate, not whether it qualifies. The rules are at /port/ftz-74-guide/ and the service is at /services/ftz-bonded-warehouse/.

What to do now

1. Map your current Baltimore volume by arrival terminal, warehouse address and side of the harbor.
2. Ask your carriers for their 2028 terminal plans in writing.
3. Shortlist east-side partner warehouses and decide on bonded, zone or plain storage.
4. Reprice the Midwest share on rail.
5. If the zone wins, begin the activation file in 2027.
6. Set a review every six months. The terminal, the shipyard and the bridge all publish milestones, and each one moves the plan.

Baltimore 3PL does not own a terminal, a warehouse or a truck at Sparrows Point. The desk works with the partner warehouses, drayage carriers and licensed customs broker partners already on the east side, and it holds the plan together as the terminal comes online. Drayage between the terminals and the park runs through /services/drayage/, and the existing terminal facts are at /port/seagirt-marine-terminal/.

What to send for a quote

• Annual container volume into Baltimore today, by carrier and service
• Current arrival terminal and current warehouse address
• Whether the program needs bonded storage, zone status, or neither
• Share of volume bound for the Midwest by rail, if any
• Target start date for a Sparrows Point or east-side warehouse
• Commodity, value per container, and any hazmat or over-height cargo in the mix
• Contract renewal dates for ocean, drayage and warehouse agreements