CLEVELAND — The beginning of April marks the opening of the 2023 Great Lakes shipping season with the first freighter arriving Tuesday night at the Port of Cleveland — the Isadora, a 652-foot-long bulk carrier cargo ship carrying steel coils from the Netherlands. It was smooth sailing for the ship as the mild winter weather has left the Great Lakes mostly ice-free.
The opening of the shipping season though dictated more by the maintenance done each winter to the locks that connect the lake than the weather itself.
"That is dictated by the St. Lawrence Seaway system, so the locks opened March 22 this year," said David Gutheil, Chief Commercial Officer for the Port of Cleveland. "So the locks are drained every year, every winter for maintenance and they're refilled when the system is ready to open and these vessels start to arrive."
The Port is looking to welcome more ships this season, building on the job they've done in the wake of the nation's supply chain struggles and positioning Cleveland as a viable alternative.
"Certainly, the congestion issues that have occurred over the last two years at coastal ports have helped us gain stature; we need to capitalize on that and continue to improve our infrastructure and give customers the opportunity to use the port more than ever," he said. "We're looking at another good year. We're optimistic that [with] the steel that we bring in on an annual basis we'll continue to stay strong."
The port recently completed a $22 million project to overhaul one of its main docks and just received $27 million in part to modernize the warehouse. This is on top of improvements that will allow the port to begin handling, for the first-time, bulk liquids which will come into Cleveland this summer from Southeast Asia.
"So that will be our first direct partnership with the Southeast Asia origin cargo, so we're excited about that," Gutheil said.
Most of the cargo that comes through the port each year you never see but for one exception in recent years — the fast-growing area of cruise ship tourism. It turns out the port's location at the doorstep of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Science Center and downtown as a whole is becoming a popular stop since the first ship stopped here in 2017. They had nine that summer; this year they'll welcome 53.
"We're really happy to welcome three new lines here this year, Viking, LeDumont and Pearl Seas, all will be in Cleveland for the first time and can't wait to see those vessels start to arrive next month," Gutheil said. The additional tourism dollars are dropped on top of the $3.5 billion in economic activity the Port generates through the 13 million tons of cargo that pass through it each year.
